Sub Zero
by l Layla l
Summary: It's only been a few hours, and he already can't deal with it anymore."
1. Default Chapter

Sub Zero  
by Layla

In the depths of her unconsciousness she is aware of one thing only – the cold.

Not just cold, coldness can be easily remedied. She's freezing, glacial, her entire body shaking uncontrollably, almost painfully. She curls up in the fetal position but cannot find comfort. She tightens the sheets, covers and comforters around her, but it would be the same if they were not there at all. Her body instinctively seeks his in the darkness – maybe not darkness so much as closed eyes – and she presses her chest to his bare back. He looks comfortable, peaceful, not seeking warmth as her but everywhere she touches him she finds coldness, as if his body has turned into a giant icicle. Touching him burns her, freezing burn, but she finds herself getting closer anyway, sewing her legs to his, seeking warmth, desperately, seeking comfort.

His body turns and he puts his hand to her cheek, his breath releasing puffs of frozen smoke. His fingers caress her skin with tender intention but are unintentionally hard, raspy like stale snow.

"Stella?" he asks, his voice riddled with concern, warmth, but she can't feel it. Why can't she feel it? "What's wrong, baby?"

A low moan escapes her and she opens her eyes, sees nothing but blue, ice, snow.

"Can't get warm," her voice trembles, barely audible even to herself. She's tired, sleepy, her mind lagging and confused, and so cold she can barely feel her extremities.

He wraps his arms around her, strongly, his lips brushing her bare shoulders but every kiss feels like ice cubes callously stabbing her skin. And despite this pain, she presses her face to his chest, wondering if she can somehow infiltrate into his flesh and find the warmth in his core, because she can't find it anywhere else, can't find it in this bed, can't find it in his embrace.

Why is it so cold? Why can't she feel anything but coldness?

"Mac..."

"Shh," he coos, running his hand through her curls. "Go back to sleep."

Her mind offers resistance to his words, but her body doesn't have the energy to obey her mind. So per his orders, her eyes close, blackness taking over for the few seconds it takes her to succumb to nothing.

oooo

Mac Taylor is aware of the chaos around the lab. Maybe not chaos, not necessarily chaos, but a quiet unrest. At least he was aware of it five minutes ago. Not now. Right now his mind is only aware of the phone he held to his ear, the number of rings it takes for her answering machine to activate. The same old message again. Her voice never changes, but somehow it sounds different to him every single time. "Leave your name and phone number and I promise I'll call you back."

Only it's been five hours, and she hasn't called.

"Stella, this is Mac. Please call me as soon as you get this message," he says, stops there, wondering what else to say, wondering if there's anything else to say. There isn't.

He hangs up. Picks it up again. Tries her cell phone again. Slightly different message, but the same gist. The same promise. So he leaves the same message as well, wondering how much longer before he clogs her inbox with the same words, the same monotonous orders. Please call back, call home, call work, call my cell phone. Call Danny. Call Aiden. Call someone, anyone. _Please_. Just call.

She hasn't.

If she's mad at him he can't figure out why. They were out just the night before, had a cup of coffee for absolutely no reason whatsoever except it has always been hard for both of them to go home to empty apartments. She wasn't unhappy, she didn't seem mad, on the contrary. She was her usual cheerful self, joking around with him, sometimes even at his expense. They talked about meaningless things, avoiding the topic of work because sometimes it's bad enough having to live through their cases during the day, let alone relieve them over a cup of coffee at night. He can't remember how long they sat there. Eventually she began to yawn, so he reached for his wallet and paid for their coffees, received no complaints because it was his turn to pay, otherwise he would have.

She didn't seem mad as they walked outside. She declined his offer to share a cab with him, said something about taking the subway instead. So he said goodbye, watched her go until she disappeared into the New York crowd that never seemed to wane.

He knows she can take care of herself. He knows she's a cop. He knows she has been trained well. He knows she carries a gun but there's always that nagging machismo, that unreasonable and irrational part of him that makes him worry so much. If she knew about it she'd probably give him hell for it, call him a chauvinistic pig, which is probably the reason why he always worries, but he always worries behind her back.

But it wears him out. His mind is tired, tired of trying to come up with a million different explanations, a billion different scenarios. It's only been a few hours, and he already can't deal with it anymore. It's taken all the energy out of his body; it's taken the sanity out of his mind.

"Mac?"

He looks up, expecting to see her there, expecting to see that playful smile on her face as she laughs at him, at her own joke. "Ha ha, Mac, you should've seen your face. Got you good this time. Now what's my assignment?"

Or at least an angry expression, a frustrated sigh as she complains about how bad traffic was that morning, about how her cell phone's battery died and that was the reason why she never showed to work and didn't call.

But she's not there.

No playful expression, no angry expression, no lame excuses. Aiden stands by the door instead, her arms crossed, a very concerned look on her face.

She asks him something Mac never hears, or chooses not to hear, but it doesn't matter. He knows the question, or at least the gist of it. Aiden is worried. Danny is worried. Everyone around the lab is worried and they think it's time for him to do something about it. Because it's very unusual for Stella to be late, let alone miss work, without calling and they all know that. It's very unusual for Stella to miss work without calling and not be home, and not answer her phone, and not answer her cell phone. Everyone around the lab is concerned and they're all waiting for him to do something about it. Anything. At least give them the okay so they can do it themselves.

For some reason, he can't.

And his cop mind tells him he has to, should've done it by now, even though technically they have to wait twenty four hours to file an official report. Those are the rules. But then the non-cop within him complains, because the non-cop doesn't want to admit that there might be a problem, that there might be a problem with Stella. The non-cop reminds him Stella is weird, that she must've overslept, that she must've gotten mad at him some time between that last cup of coffee and now and she's trying to teach him a lesson by making him worry.

His cop mind only has to remind him that the more he waits, the worse it will get. And the non-cop within him finally relents.

"Call Flack," he says, not very loudly but he gets the feeling Aiden was five seconds away from doing it had he given her the order or not. She disappears into the lab, phone to her ear, and he picks up the phone again, his finger halfway to the 'redial' button when he realizes it's futile. It's useless.

His denial disappears.

Stella is not answering her phone. Stella is not home. Stella is not answering her cell phone. Stella never showed up for work and there's no denying it anymore. Something's wrong.

So he puts the phone back in its cradle and picks up his coat. Rushes out of his office and Danny and Aiden want to go with him, but he tells them, or rather orders them, to stay behind in case Stella calls, to start searching for clues, find a lead. They obey without complaining. He waits for Flack outside the station and doesn't give the young cop the opportunity to get out of his car. Mac jumps into the passenger seat as Flack asks him all kinds of questions. What's wrong with Stella? Where is Stella? Where are they going? What's going on?

Stupid questions Mac refuses to answer, instead concentrates on the never-ending New York traffic in front of them as thousands of scenarios flash through his head. When they finally pull up in front of Stella's building he rushes out, Flack right at his heels. They flash their badges at the doorman, who steps behind and lets them do their job. Mac ignores the elevators, takes the stairs instead, two, three steps at a time, so fast Flack is having a hard time keeping up with him, youthful energy and all.

The hallway is empty and they reach apartment 305 quickly. Flack knocks on Stella's door a couple of times but Mac doesn't wait. He knows he has a copy of Stella's keys somewhere in his crowded keychain and when he finally finds the corresponding three he unlocks all three bolts. It doesn't hit him until he looks at Flack that he should draw his gun, too, and he reaches for it hesitantly before he opens the door.

Her apartment is quiet, too quiet to ease his worries, until her cat Brutus jumps in front of him, crying and rubbing himself against Mac's feet. Flack heads towards the kitchen; Mac never decides to check the bedroom but his feet guide him there regardless, Brutus crying and meowing behind him. Her bedroom door is closed and he knocks on it a couple of times, stupid idea, he knows that, but a part of him can't let go of the fact that he probably did something to piss her off and that's why she's hiding.

He opens the door when he never receives a reply, and he can't tell whether the fact that her bedroom is empty is a good thing or a bad thing. Her bed is made; a nondescript book sits on her night table, next to a glass of water. He checks her tiny bathroom and it's empty, too, quiet save for the next door neighbor, who's taking a shower and singing a song Mac likes but he's singing it badly, so he walks out and looks out her window; tries to open it, but it won't bulge. Tries the other window, the one that leads to the fire escape, but that one is locked as well and that makes him feel a little better, scratches the theory that someone broke into her apartment through the window right out of his mind.

He meets Flack in the living room again and the cop is looking at him with an almost haunted expression on his face. He doesn't spend as much time with Stella as Danny or Aiden, but he's worried, too. Brutus runs towards the kitchen, wailing the whole time, and Mac follows him. The tabby cat begins to circle his dish and that's when it hits Mac. The words shift around in his mind like he's trying to put together a really bad puzzle – Stella always feeds Brutus. Stella always feeds Brutus as soon as she comes home. Brutus is very obviously starved.

Stella never came home last night.

It hits him that this is greater than he thought it was. Much worse than he had anticipated. Stella wasn't mad at him, she wasn't playing hide and seek, her train wasn't stuck at somewhere down the tracks between her apartment and the lab. Stella hasn't been missing for five hours.

Stella has been missing for seventeen hours.

For a moment he feels like he has to sit down, because it leaves him breathless, airless, and nauseous. Seventeen. Seventeen hours and no one noticed. Seventeen hours and during those first twelve hours, no one thought to call her, or check up on her, or drop by to make sure she had gotten home safely. No one called just to talk and if they did, no one called back, no one suspected a thing, no one thought to call the cops because it's very unusual for Stella to ignore her phone. She always picks up her phone and someone should have realized something was off. Someone should have done something.

_He_ should have done something.

He should have called her as soon as he got home, just to make sure she arrived safely. He should have shared that cab with her, insisted when she declined. He should have suspected, not after thirteen hours, but immediately after that something was off. It should have been him, not Aiden, to first notice Stella was late for work that morning, and then notice, after an hour, that no one had seen Stella. That first phone call, that first doubt, that first suspicion... it should have been him.

There's a slight possibility, however faint it still crosses his mind, that Stella has been seeing someone. There's a chance she has a boyfriend he doesn't know about, which would explain why she declined his offer to share a cab with her, and she went home to this mystery guy the night before. And it's very possible, the most logical theory at this point, but he knows Stella would never miss work for a man. Stella sleeps with a police scanner on her night table, waiting for an excuse to hop out of bed and go to work; she would never miss work for a man.

Brutus is frantic now, rubbing himself against Mac's legs, crying so loudly Mac wishes he could strangle him just to get him to stop from making that noise, because there's no sound more aggravating in the world than a cat wailing and it's driving him insane. He starts opening cabinets until he finds a bag of cat food. He pours some in the tiny dish and Brutus is so hungry he eats the whole thing dry. How Mac hates this stupid cat, for no other reason except the stupid cat hates him.

"Shelter cats. It takes them a while, Mac, just give him a chance," he hears Stella's voice in his head. But he has given Brutus a chance; he has given Brutus a million chances. It doesn't seem to work. The cat hates him. And he hates the cat. Simple as that.

He hears Flack's voice from the living room, and it's joined by another male voice. Mac walks out and sees Flack taking to Stella's doorman, but it's not the same doorman who's working downstairs. Mac recognizes him as the night doorman, and he's looking nervous and scared.

"I figured she was working late or maybe out with a boyfriend," the doorman was saying, looking somewhat guilty, like it was his job to protect the tenants as well.

"What time does she usually come home?" Flack asks.

"Around eight?" the doorman answers. "Yeah, around eight. She brings me coffee sometimes. I just figured she was working late, I never thought..."

He stops there. The three of them stop there, trying not to look at each other, trying to pretend they don't know where that last sentence was going. Eventually, Mac rubs his eyes and begins to walk out. Going? Who knows. Anywhere but her apartment. Anywhere but a place that reminds him of her, of the fact that she's missing and nobody knows anything and he can't find any answers and he can't think up any theories. Away from her world and away from his world and away from everything he knows to be human, because it's only been a few hours and already he can't deal with this anymore. He just can't. He can't go through this again.

On his way down the stairs, his cell phone rings and he picks it up immediately, anticipating that second when he hears her voice and everything will make sense again. But it's not her. Foolish of him to think it was. Danny's voice greets him instead. The young CSI begins talking about Stella's latest case, about a disgruntled suspect who had been less than cooperative during his interrogation. Mac is skeptic, but Danny gives him the information anyway, and in what seems like a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions, Mac finds himself in front of Jorge Maldonado's building, and it looks dark and unwelcoming, but somehow he can't shake away the feeling that all the answers he's looking for are right in front of him.

To be continued


	2. Chapter Two

Sub Zero  
by Layla

It takes her forever to come back, find a way to open her eyes. When she does it takes her even longer to recognize where she is. It's hard to concentrate on anything but the cold, that damn cold again. The room is dark, smells of putrid flesh, haunting and scary and it looks like somebody has turned it into a giant freezer. She must be wearing at least ten layers of clothes, but they're wet; tiny icicles pierce into her skin. She's on the floor, still shivering, trying to stand up and leave, find a way to get warm, but she can't.

Metal tables are all lined up in front of her, a wall of silver drawers on the other side of the room and she recognizes this place as the morgue. Her eyes try to find Sheldon, she tries to call his name, but it's obvious to her that she's all alone. It's unusually dark and unusually cold, and she wonders if everyone has gone home even though that doesn't seem to matter. They're supposed to be open 24 hours a day and Sheldon never goes home. Where is everybody? Where's Sheldon?

Just two of the many questions that swim around in her mind. She can't yet figure out what she's doing there, because she always works the day shift and unless all the windows are closed it's very obviously after sundown. She finds herself trying to stand up but it's too cold and she's shaking too hard and she's too damn tired to do much but shiver.

She hears footsteps and finally manages to call out, call for help, but she gets the feeling it all happens in her mind. Somebody sits next to her on the icy floor, and she can't tell much except it makes her feel even colder.

It's him again, looking at her with that peculiar look on his face, like she's one of those puzzles that reveal something funny when you put them together and he can't wait to get the joke.

"What are you doing down here?" he asks. His tone has a hint of amusement, a little bit of humor and it's soft, very soft, but so cold it sends chills down her spine.

She pins her head between her knees, foolishly believing that if she curls into a ball she'll find at least a little bit of warmth. She doesn't.

"I don't know," her voice trembles again, moans, cries, it doesn't seem to matter. She's frustrated and scared, cold and confused. "What's going on, Mac?"

"What do you mean?"

His ignorance angers her, makes her feel sick to her stomach. His voice sounds cynical and it's strange, because Mac has never been the sarcastic type. "I wanna get out of here," she groans, her voice full of anger, frustration, hopelessness.

He smiles at her, like she has just said the most ridiculous thing in the world and he feels he can get away with being condescending. He touches one of her hands and she jerks away, freezing burn again. "You're freezing."

He tries to put his arm around her but she pushes him away this time, almost violently, because he's colder than she is, hurts her even more every time he touches her, and he's not doing anything to help her. Why isn't he doing anything to help her? She feels angry, angry at him because she's tired and she's in pain and she's freezing and he's not helping her!

She wants to hit him until he feels the pain, until he feels the cold. He's looking at her with pity and he knows how much she hates pity. He knows how much she hates it when he looks at her like that, like she's a wounded animal, like there's something wrong with her but he's doing it anyway and she wants to hit him, tries to hit him, tries to get him to stop.

But it's useless, because he's stronger than her and more understanding than her and more passive than her and he quickly forces her into submission. And she's caught between anger and anguish; anger because she hates him and anguish because she loves him and in between there's not much except this damn cold and the suspicion that this isn't the Mac Taylor she knows. Everything in front of her is blurry, the room that was the morgue but now looks much different is spinning and it makes her so nauseous she feels she's gonna throw up at any minute but there's nothing in her stomach, there's nothing her body can expel. Her mind is spinning around and around and she can't come up with any coherent thoughts except this man, this man who has his hands on her now, who's picking her up and dragging her somewhere, this isn't Mac Taylor at all.

She tries to fight him, even though he looks like Mac and sounds like Mac, she tries to defend herself, hurt him if she has to, but his voice is soft and somehow loving and she's caught between those two feelings again, love and hate, and he takes advantage of that. A strange odor brings her body to life, it jerks around, trying to fight it, trying to breathe fresh air but it's futile. Last thing she feels is her limp body plummeting to the floor before it all fades to black again.

oooo

Mac and Danny are sitting in front of Jorge Maldonado, a young Hispanic urbanite who is looking around the small interrogation room, unimpressed and trying to look unemotional. It's not a hard act to pull

"You know why you're here?" Mac asks, trying to sound intimidating, rather than emotionally exhausted as he really is.

"I already told that bitch yesterday I don't know nothing about no missing kid," Jorge says.

Anger boils within Mac but he gulps it down, knows, for Stella's sake, that he has to control his emotions. Danny, however, shifts uncomfortably next to him and suddenly it's clear to him that it's not his emotions he needs to worry about, but Danny's.

Mac places a picture of Stella on the table, does his best not to look at it, for some strange reason, and slides it forward. "Recognize her?"

Jorge picks up the picture, looks at it, throws it back on the table and scoffs. "Yeah, that's her."

"Her. Her who?" Danny spits.

"The cop lady who interrogated me yesterday. What are you, a retard?" Jorge replies.

"Well, that _cop lady_," Danny retaliates, "happens to be missing. And it so happens that you threatened her yesterday when she brought you in here."

"Yeah, so?"

"So what are you, a retard?" Danny answers, and Mac knows he should probably tell Danny to settle down, or at least give him some kind of sign to do so, but for some reason he doesn't.

Jorge frowns and chuckles. "Oh, no. No, no, no, you ain't pinning this on me, son."

"Where is she?" Mac asks.

Jorge looks like he's laughing and trying to remain serious at the same time as he shakes his head. "The hell should I know?"

Danny purses his lips, smiles cynically like he's enjoying the game. "You know we audio tape everything that happens in this room, Jorge?"

"Okay, so you have it on tape," Jorge says. "Do you have the kidnapping on tape? Cause unless you do I got news for you, man. I'm walking. I know my rights."

"Where were you last night around eight?" Mac asks.

Jorge sighs, frustrated. "I was home."

"Big shot like you? Home at 8?" Danny says.

"Must see TV," Jorge replies.

"Can anyone confirm that?" Danny asks.

"Ask my neighbors," Jorge spits.

"Don't think we won't."

"Whatever, man," Jorge replies unenthusiastically.

Mac opens up the copy of the file in front of him, his eyes scan the words but he doesn't really read them. Too blurry and too tired to concentrate. "Says here you're a suspect in the kidnapping of 8 year old Elias Gomez."

Jorge sighs again, this time rolls his eyes. "Are you people deaf or something? I told that lady yesterday I don't even know no Elias Gomez. And what the fuck does that have to do with anything?"

"I don't know, Jorge, two kidnapping accusation in one day, that's a hell of a coincidence," Danny says.

"Yeah, it is," Jorge says. "You wanna check my alibi, check my apartment? Go ahead and get a fucking warrant, man. And take me with you so I can see your ugly face when you find nothing."

Danny grinds his teeth, trying hard to control himself because he feels he's five seconds away from punching the hell out of this kid. Mac seems unemotional next to him, though, looking at the file in front of him like he's not even listening to the conversation. He's at a loss now, because they really don't have much to go on except an audio tape of Jorge threatening Stella, and Danny's sure that's not gonna help them find her if they don't get this kid talking soon.

Luckily, Mac seems to come back to reality and stands up, grabs the jacket from behind his chair and puts it on. Danny doesn't know what Mac's plans are, but he follows anyway.

"So I can go?" Jorge asks and moves to stand up but a guard sits him back down.

"No," Mac says sharply.

Jorge hisses out. "This is bull, man."

Danny chooses to ignore that and follows Mac out of the room. Aiden is outside, with a somber look on her face, watching Jorge through the one way mirror.

"I combed her apartment from top to bottom, there's nothing there," she says, her eyes reluctantly on Mac and Danny. "I also called every cab company to see if someone matching Stella's description hailed one of their cabs last night. Faxed them a copy of her picture, they're checking with their cabbies right now."

Mac frowns, stares ahead, processing her words and then shakes his head. "She said she was gonna take the subway."

"Okay, but not all the stations have cameras and she may have walked a few blocks first, Mac," Aiden replies.

"I don't care, Aiden, check every single station if you have to," Mac says, his voice full of life again, frustration.

Aiden looks at Danny, but he merely shakes his head at her, letting her know there's not much they can do at the moment and they better follow orders. So she leaves without protesting.

"Danny, fetch Flack and check this guy's alibi, make sure he was home last night," Mac adds.

"You got it," Danny says.

"And call a judge, they might be generous and give us a warrant," Mac says.

Danny stops, looks at Mac for a while. "You know, it might be easier if we talked to the press."

"No, no cameras," Mac says adamantly.

Danny is about to protest, but like Aiden, quickly learns there's no arguing with Mac when he's this way. So he digs into his jacket for his cell phone and walks away.

Mac stays behind, doubting his abilities as a detective and as a man because at this point he feels completely incapacitated. He knows the rules, knows the procedures, knows who to call and when to call them and how to go about this. Just another standard missing persons case. He knows the procedure. But for some reason his mind has decided to leave him and everything seems completely random, chaotic. This kid in the interrogating room, they don't even have a strong lead. It's not like they don't get threatened by suspects all the time. It's almost a daily occurrence. He feels like he's going backwards, opening doors that lead to brick walls because he can't seem to find the real way out. Every second that ticks by he feels Stella slipping out of his grasp and it feels like there's nothing he can do to stop it. His mind is a hundred paces behind his surroundings, reacting too late to things that have already happened, and he's sure one of the higher ups will soon show up at his door to force this case away from him.

The idea is the only incentive he needs to go back into his office. He knows it hasn't been 24 hours yet but he's not gonna wait. He's not gonna sit back and see this scene play itself out again. So he reluctantly picks up the phone, knows that by doing so he's admitting this is bigger than him, bigger than Danny and Aiden and Flack combined and he needs help.

Luckily he's always been on the NYPD's good graces. He doesn't have to lie, doesn't have to say Stella has been missing for 24 hours when she's really been missing for 18. He talks to his old partner, who expresses his feelings about what a shame this is but doesn't really understand this is more than just a shame. Papers won't be filled until exactly 8 pm that night but he gets a promise that they'll start an unofficial investigation.

He has to fight hard to sound at least a little grateful. An unofficial investigations means filling out her first name on a document and waiting until 8 to fill out her last name. An unofficial investigation is what they tell people when they don't wanna say, "Sorry, we can't do much right now but wait." He knows comes 8 p.m. the shit's gonna hit the fan, and part of him knows it's all this waiting, this lack of anything tangible, that's making this so stifling. The other part of him is somewhere out there, lost in the vastness of the city, waiting for him to do something he himself cannot even grasp.

His cell phone rings and he quickly picks it up, already hearing her voice in his head, anticipating her excuse for putting him through this, a passive and nonchalant response, probably. Followed by his anger, the use of words like unreasonable and irresponsible, her name in a poisonous tone. And then she'll no doubt blame it on him, call him in on his "crap". "You think too much, Mac, that's your problem. You blow things way out of proportion."

He won't let her this time, though. He's not gonna let her get away with what she's put him through, even if he has to yell. There's never been a winner or a loser in their fights but this time he feels the need to win, because it's been 18 hours and she hasn't even called and that is completely irresponsible. He doesn't care if she hates him forever. This is unacceptable.

"Detective Taylor."

"I got good news and bad news," Danny says.

Mac's eyes close, he tries not to let the disappointment show in his voice. He lets out a sigh and looks around the room, wondering how long before he loses it. He can feel it drawing near "Please tell me the good news is he has a doorman."

"No, no doorman, but check this out. All his neighbors said he was home last night, but some of them said nine, the others ten... one lady says he came home at six."

"So he's lying," Mac says.

"Either he's lying or they're lying, but that alibi's not holding much water right now. The bad news is I talked to a judge, said we don't have enough evidence for a warrant."

Mac frowns disapprovingly, but in a way is not surprised. "Thanks, Danny."

He hangs up, and before he returns to Jorge Maldonado itching fingers try her cell phone number again. But at this point he knows he's fooling himself. This time it feels like her voice mail activates even quicker, if only to mock him or let him know he's being an idiot. But despite that he tries a second time.

It's fruitless.

So he walks back towards the interrogation room and it looks the same as when he left it, feels the same. Jorge looks up and rolls his eyes, which is supposed to make him feel disrespected, but it doesn't.

"Must be nice having all that power over your neighbors," Mac says, throws Jorge's file on the table and sits down. Jorge ignores him. "Instant alibis. What do you do, threaten them?"

Jorge looks up and smirks. "Where's your boyfriend?"

"Just you and me now," Mac says.

"Okay." Jorge leans forward. "Let's tango."

Mac narrows his eyes, knows he has the power here, he's got the upper hand and he needs to let that show. "Where were you last night around eight pm?"

Jorge smiles. "You know I just realized, I have the right to a lawyer, right?"

Mac doesn't find it funny. "Where is she?"

"You tell me, man. Isn't that your job?"

Mac leans forward, trying to remember every single intimidation tactic he was taught in the academy and in the Marines. And it probably won't do much, since this kid has been interrogated so many times he could probably write a book on it, but it's worth a shot.

"If something happens to her," Mac starts and stops for a few seconds, trying to get used to that idea, to the mental image that comes with the sentence. "You're our only suspect; you're the only one with a motive. You threatened her and then she disappeared. That's more than a coincidence, Jorge. Jury's not gonna see beyond that, not when the victim is a cop. Something happens to Stella... you're going away for life. So if you at least wanna add the chance of parole to your sentence you better tell me where she is."

Jorge doesn't reply, just looks to the side and purses his lips.

So Mac continues, knows he's on to something. "Your alibi doesn't check out. You wanna tell me why you lied to me or would you rather tell a judge?"

Jorge sits back, staring at Mac with a defiant look on his face for a second before he looks away and lets out a sigh. "Fine," he says, scratching the back of his neck and then learning his body forward again, elbows resting on the table. "Alright, I saw her last night."

Mac frowns, a part of him can't believe he's getting a confession but his face hardens again quickly. "Where?"

"With you," Jorge replies. "I guess you were having dinner or something, I don't know. I waited outside and followed her a couple blocks. She went into a subway station but then came out, guess she forgot something."

"Which station?"

"96th West," Jorge replies, his demeanor much more calmed, watching as Mac writes everything down. "She walked into the park, bought herself some flowers. By the time I crossed the street she was gone."

Mac looks at him reluctantly, and something in him wants to believe Jorge, something in him knows Jorge is capable of this and more, and he's probably guilty of the kidnapping charges he's been accused of, and if Jorge is responsible for Stella's disappearance... Mac knows that's it. The cop in him tells him there's a pretty good chance Jorge is lying, but the man believes him blindly.

"I swear to God, man. I didn't touch her. Alright? Besides, I'm not gonna waste my time with a fucking cop."

"Why were you following her?" Mac asks.

Jorge shrugs his shoulders. "Just in case."

"In case of what."

"Case she put me away," Jorge replies.

Mac narrows his eyes, and he can feel the anger in him threatening to burst out, but with a great amount of strength he puts a lid on his emotions. But the anger remains bubbling under the thin surface, so he stands up and Jorge starts complaining again, but Mac can't deal with this.

He ignores the guard that opens the door for him and walks away from the interrogation room. Another fucking wall. Back to square one. They have absolutely nothing to go on from here, nothing makes sense. And he doesn't know why but every second seems to stretch into years, eons, and every minute that passes he finds himself walking deeper into this maze.

Danny and Flack are making their way into the lab when Mac exits the interrogating room, both boys walking with an attitude that indicates they haven't had those badges for long. Mac sometimes misses feeling that invincible.

"Did he confess?" Danny asks first thing.

But Mac shakes his head, walks towards his office. "He didn't do it."

"What? Mac, he's got motive and opportunity," Danny complains.

Mac ignores that, looks at Flack instead. "Let him go."

"Mac," Danny complains again. "What are you doing?"

Mac sighs. He doesn't want to have this conversation right now; he doesn't want to be near anybody right now, especially a little boy who still relies on his instincts to solve cases. He doesn't want to have this conversation with someone who thinks he's not being objective, that he's not being realistic or even optimistic enough to be the lead of this investigation. Melodramatic, maybe, but he can't help the anger that resurfaces for the tenth time that day. "I'm doing my job, Danny."

"Are you?" Danny says, taking a step forward. Behind him, Flack flees from the tense confrontation and walks towards the interrogation room to free Jorge. Danny continues. "Because you sure as hell ain't doing anything that makes sense."

"Danny," Mac says sharply.

"Why can't we talk to the press?" Danny exclaims. "They put her picture out there and someone will call! There's 8 million people in the city and **one** of them saw what happened to Stella. We need to put her picture out there."

It makes sense to Mac, of course, and he's pretty sure this story will leak out to the press the minute the NYPD creates Stella's file. But he can't stand the thought of seeing Stella on the television screen, clueless reporters talking about all the great things she's done, flashing telephone numbers like she's a fucking charity case. He already can't deal with the thousands of misleading phone calls they'll get, the people calling to claim they saw Stella having coffee with Elvis on top of the Empire State Building. He's not gonna deal with that. Not now.

He doesn't say it, though, and that makes the tension escalate even more. He looks around the room and a few people are now staring, or trying very hard to hide the fact that they're staring. Mac feels an overwhelming wish to yell at them, tell them this is none of their damn business and go back to work. But then something happens, he doesn't know what, exactly, or where it comes from. Suddenly Danny's entire demeanor changes and he starts looking at Mac under a new light, like there was something pitifully wrong wit him, a wounded animal.

Mac despises the look. Pity. He recognizes it painfully well. Memories flow back and he can feel it again, that hate, that overwhelming need to vanish, disappear, forget all their faces, erase their pitiful looks off his memory. But it's useless because he sees their faces even when his eyes are closed, can see their faces now. A sea of people and yet they all look the same when they look at him like this, like Danny is looking at him right now. Pity. He finds he hates the word as much as he hates the look.

He senses Danny is five seconds away from saying something, something deep and profound and disguised in hope but he knows it's a lot of crap. Mac doesn't know what's worse sometimes, the pity or the condolences, the sugary sweet and clichéd phrases that only make sense when they're printed on a Hallmark card. And when the two of them combine, the pity and the condolences, he finds it's hard to even be around himself, with his betraying thoughts. It's hard to deal with it now. So before Danny has the opportunity to turn into one of them, another blank face in an already vast sea, Mac leaves the younger CSI standing in the middle of the lab and retrieves himself into his office.

But he doesn't linger there for long. It's hard to be in one place at the same time under the circumstances. It's hard to keep track of one thought when billions are rushing in and out of his mind. He tries calling her again, at this point he wonders if this has crossed into obsessive compulsive disorder, but receives no reply. Danny has now gone somewhere, he also sees Flack leaving the lab. Everyone seems to be working extra quiet today, as if they were already mourning, and it makes Mac believe, just for the fraction of a second, that he's dreaming all of this. It has to be the only logical explanation. Is he supposed to accept someone may have harmed Stella? How could he, when Stella is the strongest person he knows, stronger than him, stronger than every CSI, stronger than everyone at the NYPD combined? It doesn't make sense.

"Does anything ever make sense, Mac?" he hears her voice in his head. No, nothing ever makes sense, especially in this line of work.

Already lethargic legs drag him out of his office. In the AV room, Aiden is sitting in front of a monitor, blankly studying a surveillance tape. She's got three interns with her, all of them watching a different tape. Danny's words quickly come back to haunt him and he knows this is all wrong. What the hell is he doing?

"Aiden," he says and she jumps, turns around quickly. "Come on."

She doesn't ask any questions, it's one of the things he's always liked about Aiden. She follows him around blindly, shows loyalty to him even when he's wrong. He fills her in on the way to 96th street, and she doesn't ask many questions even then. The two of them, loaded with their guns and a picture of Stella, re-trace Jorge Maldonado's steps.

He starts in the little hole in the wall where they had coffee. He follows her outside, watches as she disappears into the New York crowd, follows her through it, all the way to the subway station. He emerges from it a couple of seconds later and looks around. There's a small flower cart on the other side of the street and he thanks God that his instincts to trust Jorge were right. At least so far.

Mac crosses the street, Aiden in tow, and approaches the vendor.

"Roses for the beautiful lady?" the vendor asks when he sees them, excited about the prospect of a sale.

Mac shakes his head. "Were you working here last night?"

The vendor's entire demeanor changes. "Who's asking?"

Mac flashes his badge.

The vendor doesn't react much, just turns around and starts spraying the daffodils. "Work here every day. Since 1983. Haven't missed a day."

Aiden digs out her copy of the picture of Stella and shows it to him. "Do you remember seeing this woman last night?"

The vendor turns around, takes the picture and studies it. He smiles. "Oh, yeah. Tulips. Pretty lady, hadn't seen her around here before."

Aiden narrows her eyes at him. "Did you happen to notice where she went?"

"I get a lot of costumers at night, lady. Couples on dates, especially tourists. Can't keep my eyes on the cash register and some random broad at the same time," he replies.

Aiden sighs and looks at Mac. The vendor notices their desperation and shrugs his shoulders. "She might have gone that way," he says, pointing deeper into the park. "But like I said, you know?"

Mac doesn't say much, just begins walking into the park as Aiden thanks the vendor. There's a million different places to go, but he walks forward and Aiden veers to the left. He tries to get into Stella's head, tries to figure out why she didn't go home but he finds he can't make much sense of this. Jorge claimed Stella had disappeared by the time he crossed the street, the vendor claimed he saw her walk in this direction, but neither men's word carries much validity. It's a gray day in the city and the park is less crowded than usual, and on his way to God knows where he passes a couple of ladies picking up trash off the ground. They're laughing as they do it, seemingly enjoying the tedious task, but their joy is not what Mac concentrates on as he approaches them.

"Excuse me, ma'am?" he asks and watches as they all turn to face him. "Can I take a look at your garbage?"

They all look at him as if he's grown a second head, and their eyebrows skyrocket when they see him pull out a pair of gloves.

"What are you, some kind of weirdo?" one of them asks.

"NYPD," Mac replies, ignores the jokes they whisper among themselves. He looks through the garbage as they stand to the side, and he feels Aiden join him a couple of seconds later. Together, they dig through old newspapers and random bottles and cans and whatnot until Mac accidentally uncovers a couple of white petals at the bottom of the bag.

"Tulips?" Aiden asks next to him, her voice full of energy again.

"Where did you find these?" Mac asks the women, who all look at each other before one of them decides to speak.

"Couple of yards that way? It's my route."

Mac looks in the direction and then back at Aiden. She seems to understand when he wants to say and immediately proceeds to confiscate the garbage off the group of women, who all protest that they might get fired for this.

"Come with me," he tells the woman responsible for the route he has his eye on and she reluctantly follows him further into the park. Mac ignores kissing couples and crying children and tourists taking pictures of each other and keeps his tired eyes on the ground.

"I guess it was around here," the woman next to him finally says and stands to the side, watching him wearily.

Mac looks around, and other than the couple of trees that adorn the area, there isn't much to look at. The ground is nearly perfectly clean, not a shred of paper, not a single leaf, not even a visible speckle of blood. He knows they'll need a couple of hounds to comb the area; he also knows the NYPD didn't have that in mind when they promised him an unofficial investigation. This feels almost as fruitless as dialing Stella's phone number, but he doesn't say good bye definitively to the area as he makes his way back.

Aiden is standing in the same spot where he left her, a few garbage bags surrounding her. He helps her load them into the car, and on their way back to the lab he can't help but feel he's closer now, even if he wasn't able to find a crime scene, maybe they will find something in the trash. He tries to ignore the voice that tells him Stella doesn't like flowers because he's sure it would take him back to square one. Any other case and they'd have nothing. But this random petal... he's sure it's gonna help. It has to help.

Aiden seems nervous next to him, distracted, still somber. He finds himself compelled to comfort her, somehow, even if he has to do it with empty words.

"Maybe this is nothing. Maybe she's just..." he stops there, not really knowing how to end that sentence and keep Stella in complete characterization in his mind. Strangely, Aiden seems to read his thoughts.

"That's not Stella, Mac," she says.

Weird to think that it brings him comfort. Weird to think it makes him feel better, because if Aiden can see it too, it means he's not crazy, he's not overreacting. He trusts Aiden's instincts. She has a way of getting into people's heads, psychoanalyze them accurately. And if Aiden says this isn't nothing, that's all Mac needs to subside the doubts in his head, at least for the moment.

The rest of the ride is silent.

When they arrive at the lab, Aiden immediately takes off to look through the garbage bags, and Mac is on his way to help her when he sees Danny rushing towards him, file in hand, their animosity apparently forgotten.

"Mac!" he exclaims, jogging the last couple of steps until he reaches his boss. "I think I have something."

"What?"

"De Luca's latest case. Carlos Martinez, owner of a bodega on 201th, his wife found him this morning, single GSW to the head."

Mac nods, nearly frustrated. "And?"

"And the bullet Hawkes removed from the body? .40-caliber. De Luca ran it through IBIS and found a match."

"To what?"

"To us."

oooo

Yellow tape surrounds the entrance to the little bodega on 201th street. Mac slides under it, followed by Danny, and they make their way inside. The blood they know hasn't been cleaned yet is beginning to smell. The body has been removed but the scent of death still lingers in the air. It's something you never get used to.

"No surveillance," Danny comments next to Mac, using his flashlight to look around the scene. They both know De Luca will be mad when he finds out they're overstepping into his case, but Mac doesn't care. He walks around carefully, trying not to step into the puddle of blood that's made its way pretty much everywhere. Half the products in the aisles are either expired or old enough to be on a museum and something tells him Martinez had a little business on the side, because this obviously wasn't generating much income. But that's De Luca's problem.

He makes his way further in as Danny lingers in the front of the store. Mac opens a door and finds himself in a vast room, and there's grain all over the floor, smells of poultry and now he knows how Carlos Martinez was able to pay his rent. Cock fights. He shakes his head and crosses the room, opens the back door and finds himself in an alley. A couple of windows look down on the scene and he knows they're not gonna get a lot of witnesses to talk but again, De Luca's problem.

"It's all been printed already," Danny says, appearing next to Mac as if by magic and sounding hopeless and frustrated, like he's running on fumes. Mac understands the feeling.

But he doesn't reply, drags a trashcan over and places it next to the huge dumper that rests on the side of the building. He steps on it and looks inside.

"What are you doing?" Danny asks, peering into the dumpster himself and wincing at the sharp smell.

"Did you see all those prints De Luca lifted in there?" Mac asks, swinging one leg in, then the other, and landing on top of the garbage with a slight grunt.

"Yeah."

"What kind of criminal doesn't wear gloves or a mask?"

"A stupid criminal," Danny smirks.

"Exactly," Mac says. "And prints aren't the only things stupid criminals leave behind."

He's inside now, kicking away the garbage, looking, searching, his hands digging into disgusting things he wouldn't normally dig through but he doesn't care. His fingers finally come in contact with something hard, metallic. He reaches for it, pulls it out, hangs it in the air. Danny's eyes widen, they don't need a database, a computer, even a picture to know exactly what they're looking at.

Stella's gun.

TBC

A/N: Stella is an orphan, apparently, so I had to go back and change everything. Grr.


	3. Chapter Three

Sub Zero  
by Layla

Mac walks into the layout room, and the buzzing and humming of the computers and equipment is suddenly loud against the vacuum of his mind. Danny is dismantling Stella's gun on the table, periodically glancing up at the computer monitor that sits next to him. Pieces of her gun are scattered throughout the table and Mac can't help thinking she'd hate to see her gun like this, her precious gun, her pride and joy. The thought of it almost makes him smile, but one look at Danny's face brings him back to reality.

"Did you get anything?" Mac asks trying to force his voice into sounding hopeful if only to fool himself.

"Few sets of prints," Danny replies. "Had to super glue the whole thing, but I've got a partial of Stella's. Looks like they tried to clean it but did a sloppy job."

"Run them through AFIS?"

Danny doesn't reply but points at the computer screen, and the way the thousands of fingerprints flash on the screen is almost hypnotizing. Mac stares at the monitor, willing the computer to stop with a match, a new lead, a bit of hope. But time moves forward and he stands there still, a sad delegacy of his entire life.

"Aiden find anything in the garbage?"

He snaps out of his short reverie and looks at Danny. The question goes through a meticulous process of scrutiny in his mind before he's able to understand what it means. "No. Not yet." Danny leaves it at that. Mac is grateful for that and looks at the screen again, impatiently wishing it would search faster. "How long now?"

Danny finally looks up, but not at Mac, at the computer. "Nearly thirty minutes."

Mac frowns. That's thirty more minutes of inactivity, thirty more minutes that probably mean the world to Stella. Every minute counts, is what he always tells the family members of the victims; it's what he tells himself now. Every minute counts. Thirty minutes have gone by. 19 hours since this odyssey began and every single minute counts. He tries to remind himself to remain calm, to ignore the intense frustration that's threatening to bubble to the surface because if it does, there's no way he'll be able to get an ounce of work done.

Frustrated, he scratches his forehead and prepares to leave. Where? He doesn't quite know. "Let me know if you get a match."

He doesn't have to wait long. As soon as he turns to leave, the machine beeps. Danny nearly jumps out of his chair when it does, and together, they stare at the picture of a young boy, and without having to look at the details of the file they can tell he can't be older than 18. Johnny Buchanan. 16 years old. Has been on probation twice for reckless behavior, robbery, and vandalizing. Nothing major.

Until now.

oooo

Mac nearly jumps when his cell phone rings, and he knows it's foolish to continue to hope it'll be her, to keep expecting to hear her voice on the other line. It's foolish but he can't help wondering. This time, however, it's Danny, calling to let him know they have Johnny Buchanan on hold.

He stands up, puts his jacket on, and walks out of his office. Down by the precinct, Danny is waiting for him and pacing, and though Flack is leaning against a desk seemingly carelessly, Mac recognizes the hesitant look on his face. He looks around and sees Johnny in a small cell, sitting next to another boy Mac doesn't recognize. He begins to walk over subconsciously, but Danny approaches him before he gets near the cell.

"Looks like we have a case of he said/he said."

Mac frowns. "Who's the other boy?"

"Zack Murphy, aka a possible match for that other print we found. They started rattling each other out as soon as Flack flashed his badge," Danny explains.

"Where were they?"

"Terrorizing some basketball court in Brooklyn."

Mac sighs and shakes his head. "They're just a couple of kids."

"Zack's mom is on her way, can't locate any of Johnny's relatives," Danny said, letting out a small sigh as he looks at the boys, kids, because that's what they are. Children. "This city's fucked up, Mac."

Mac finds himself shaking his head again. There's something wrong with this picture, really wrong, and though he feels he's walking down the wrong path again, he can't help thinking these kids may be able to lead him somewhere peripheral, somewhere at least tangible, which is more than he can say about where he is right now.

"I'll take Johnny boy," Danny said suddenly, his mind reeling, eyes shinning in a way that indicate he can't wait to stick it to this little kid.

Mac nods and they walk off in different directions.

Danny enters one of the interrogation rooms and throws a file on the table in front of him, cracks his knuckles in anticipation and looks up when the door opens.

Flack walks into the room and flings the boy on the chair. "Here's Johnny."

Danny sits down across from Johnny, Flack decides to remain standing. "Johnny, you know why we brought you here?"

"No," Johnny says, portraying a tough attitude that is somewhat betrayed by his baby face and still somewhat boyish voice.

"We found your fingerprints in the gun that was used to kill Carlos Martinez," Danny says.

"Don't know him," Johnny says.

"No, I don't expect you to," Danny says, grabs a picture from a file and plants it on the table. "Look familiar now?"

Johnny looks away from the bloody image of Carlos Martinez.

"Wanna tell me what your fingerprints were doing on that gun, Johnny?"

"They're not mine."

Danny laughs, throws Flack a look. Flack smiles. "I'm gonna give the public school system the benefit of the doubt and assume, for my sake, that you're just plain stupid."

"What the hell does that mean?" Johnny narrows his eyes at Danny.

"Guess what, smart ass, fingerprints are unique," Flack says. "So unless the gun snuck into your house in the middle of the night and rubbed itself against your fingertips while you were sleeping, you're in for murder."

Johnny frowns and looks down, and it's clear to Flack and Danny that he's desperately trying to come up with an excuse. It doesn't seem to be working.

"I didn't shoot that guy," Johnny finally says.

"Where'd you find the gun?"

Johnny doesn't reply.

"Great," Danny says, closing the file to stand up. "Have fun in prison. I hear they're using soap as lubricant now, so you should be okay."

"It was Zack," Johnny says in a moment of desperation, looking up at Danny and looking his age for the first time. "We were just gonna steal a couple of bucks, okay? And when we got there he went crazy, started shooting the guy."

"Where'd you find the gun, Johnny?" Flack asks.

oooo

"It was Johnny."

Mac narrows his eyes at the young boy in front of him. Zack Murphy, 14, scared and clinging to his mother like a baby monkey. He wants to give Zack the benefit of the doubt, because he remembers being 14, remembers the confusion, the peer pressure, the need to rebel... but he's also been on this job long, long enough to know even 14 year olds are capable of murder.

"Zack, we found two sets of fingerprints on this gun," Mac says, looking down at the file and trying to ignore the holes Zack's mother is burning on his face. "One of them belongs to Johnny. You wanna tell me who the other one belongs to?"

Zack looks at his mother hesitantly, as though he were about to burst into tears at any moment. "I didn't shoot him," he finally croaks.

"Johnny says you did."

"He's lying!" Zack cries.

"This is ridiculous," Mrs. Murphy says. "My son didn't do anything wrong!"

Mac ignores Mrs. Murphy and concentrates on Zack, knows that the tears and the fright are real and they might lead him somewhere.

"Where did you find the gun?"

Zack sniffs and looks down at the table. "At the park."

"CP?"

Zack nods. "It was wrapped in a coat. Johnny thought it was cool. We were gonna drive out of the city and shoot cans, but he said only kids shoot at cans."

Mac stares at him as he assesses the situation, does the math in his head, makes the connections and his mind tells him instantly that the crime scene he's looking for is somewhere in Central Park.

He looks up at Mrs. Murphy, who seems to be battling between denial and shock as Zack talks.

"We were going to the bodega to buy something to drink, you know, we were goofing around and the owner got pissed. He said he wanted us to leave." Zack continues with a deep breath. "Johnny got mad, really mad. I tried to tell him to let it go, but he wouldn't listen. The owner said he was gonna call the cops, so Johnny pulled the gun out."

He stops there and Mac nods, not really needing to hear much else. He knows De Luca is on the other side of the mirror, his case solved now, but Mac isn't there to solve that case. He was more interested in the other details, the ones De Luca would most likely overlook.

"Where's the coat, Zack?"

"At Johnny's," Zack replies, wiping the tears off his eyes with his sleeve. "He was gonna wash it and give it to his mom."

"Okay," Mac breaths, trying to formulate a plan in his head but suddenly there is so much information he finds himself overwhelmed. In the distance he can hear Mrs. Murphy demanding a lawyer, telling her son everything will be okay, trying to convince herself she's a great mother, a good mother despite it all.

Mac doesn't care, merely stands up and leaves the guard to deal with Mrs. Murphy's demands.

Outside, Danny and Flack stand waiting, looking somewhat victorious or perhaps hopeful. They have so little, the location of a coat that may or may not be Stella's. But at the same time it's something, something that might lead them to point B, and eventually to Stella.

Mac looks at his watch discreetly as he approaches.

20 hours.

Every minute counts.

"You got Johnny's address?" he asks Flack.

"Yup."

"Let's go."

oooo

They arrive in Brooklyn 45 minutes later, locate Johnny's house quickly and though Mac knocks on the door for what seems like forever nobody answers. Flack steps into the sidewalk to inspect the houses on either side, but he knows the borough enough and he knows these houses are like islands of their own. Nobody ever sees anything.

He returns to Mac on the porch and though it's evident there's nobody home, the CSI continues knocking anyway, announcing their presence as if the house will magically open its doors for him. Flack is about to tell him it's no use, they'll have to come back later, when they hear a sound.

A wooden door opens and they both expect a face to appear in front of them but nothing happens. It only takes them a while to figure out there's a tiny person on the other side of a screen door. Mac and Flack look down, and a girl who couldn't be older than 5 looks up at them quizzically.

Mac looks at Flack, trying to figure out what the hell is happening in this house and how this all translates into their investigation... and what now? There's too many thoughts rushing through his head to make a coherent assessment of this new development and he fears if he tries his head will explode. Luckily, Flack takes the initiative and kneels down.

"Hi," Flack says with a smile on his face, trying to appear friendly, and it's working, but it's weird for Mac to see him like this, because Flack is usually all attitude. "What's your name?"

"Julia," the little girl replies somewhat shyly.

"Julia's a very pretty name," Flack says. "My name is Don and that's my friend Mac."

Julia looks up and inspects Mac, and Mac tries to smile, appear at least half as friendly as Flack but he gets the feeling it doesn't work very well.

"Are your parents home, Julia?" Flack asks.

"Mommy's working."

"And daddy?"

Julia shrugs her shoulders.

Flack smiles sadly and looks up at Mac, who is probably thinking the same thing. He looks at Julia again. "Is it okay if we come inside for a second?"

"Mommy says I can't open the door for strangers," Julia replies.

"Well, that's very good advice, but we're not strangers, we're cops," Flack says, showing her his badge. Mac shakes his head, there's no way a kid could tell the difference between a fake badge and a real badge.

Or maybe they can, because Julia steps back and opens the screen door for them. Flack walks in first, because he and Julia are on friendly terms already, and Mac begins to look around the house as Flack picks Julia up and starts to ask her questions about her mom. Julia answers what she knows and what she doesn't know isn't too hard to assume. Flack eventually walks into the kitchen and finds a list of emergency numbers taped to the refrigerator door, Mrs. Buchanan's work number among them, and he picks up the phone and starts dialing as Mac wanders towards the bedrooms.

He passes Julia's room and Spongebob Squarepants is laughing loudly in a tiny and pink television set. The next room is darker, messy, and obviously belongs to a teenage boy. As Mac walks into Johnny's room he can't help wondering if Johnny will ever see it again. Sad that it all comes down to a bad decision, to the vulnerability of the mind of a teenage boy. Now Johnny will spend the next few years in jail for a crime he no doubt regretted way before he pulled that trigger. What a waste.

He spots the coat pretty much immediately. It's bundled up by the corner and he doesn't have to inspect it to know it's hers, because Stella might be the only woman in the city with a burgundy coat. He fishes a pair of gloves out of his kit and grabs a plastic bag. The urge to inspect the coat right there is strong, he can't imagine going another second without any answers, but he places it inside the bag instead and begins to tag it when Flack appears behind him.

"Mom's a nurse, left Johnny to take care of his sister this morning, but that obviously didn't work out too good. She'll meet us down at the precinct."

Mac looks back and Julia is still in Flack's arms, enjoying a gigantic and colorful popsicle. Where did Flack get that? He doesn't know, he doesn't care, but he can't help thinking this hard-assed cop might some day make a good father.

"Is it hers?" Flack asks, indicating the coat.

Mad nods and looks around once more. He kicks some dirty clothes out of the way, moves aside the grey sheets covering the bed but quickly realizes there's nothing else there that they might need immediately. So he walks outside with Flack, helps him load Julia into the backseat, and when they arrive at the precinct Zack's mother is already there, pacing and going insane. Mac leaves Flack to deal with it, because the last thing he needs right now is a desperate single-mother looking for answers, and goes back to the lab.

As he enters, Aiden rushes towards him, looking like she drank way too many cups of coffee.

"Did you get it?"

Mac shows her the plastic bag and she allows a smile to appear on her face. Sad, just a coat, may contain no traces of Stella, but it means so much. Aiden's smile then disappears and she crooks one eyebrow at him.

"We have company."

Mac looks past her and sighs. From across the room he can already see a unique sight to the lab. Unique but unwelcome.

Duncan Cohen. Head honcho. Barely comes to the lab unless it's serious. Mac gives Aiden the coat and she leaves with it as if she were fleeing from someone. Mac can't blame her.

Cohen's smile is smug as he approaches Mac. He's holding a file in his hand and Mac tries to seize him up. He can't. That's the thing about Cohen, you never know what he's up to, probably the reason why he is so high on the CSI food chain.

"Mac, a word?"

Mac frowns at the back of Cohen's head, wants to start his litany of excuses and complaints but is left with no other choice than to follow his boss into his office. He closes the door behind him and Cohen walks around the desk, acting like the office belongs to him. Mac feels a bit territorial; he hates when people walk around touching his things, but he ignores the feeling.

"I've got a grieving family waiting to hear some news about their son's death and one of your CSIs seems to have developed a liking for playing hard to get," Cohen says, and his tone is soft but venomous. "Is there a reason why Stella Bonasera is not answering her phone?"

Mac looks at the floor. He realizes it's a miracle Cohen doesn't know about Stella yet, because nothing happened around the lab without Cohen learning pretty much immediately. And though he knows it's best to tell Cohen now he finds he's unable to figure out how. It's not like they have anything tangible yet. A part of him also doesn't want to admit to what is happening, and if he does, if he tells Cohen Stella is missing, he knows the case will be taken away from him without a second thought.

"For God's sake, Mac, she's already in trouble. Stop covering her ass."

Mac looks up, his face revealing nothing. "Stella is not..." he says, hesitates, trying to find the right words but there are no right words. Nothing about this sounds right. "We can't find her."

Cohen's entire demeanor changes. He almost looks amused, for a second, but then a pang of incredulousness flashes through his face. "You can't find her?"

"We got it under control, Duncan."

"You can't _find_ her?" Cohen asks again, over-dramatizing the statement almost mockingly. "What does that mean, Mac, did you lose her at the mall?"

Mac sighs, avoiding Cohen's gaze. "We have reason to believe something may have happened to her. She's not answering her phone and she's not at home..."

"That's reason to believe something may have happened to her?"

"Stella doesn't just disappear, Duncan," Mac interrupts him. "In all the years I've known her she's never been late. Not once."

Cohen's stern look diminishes, somewhat, when he realizes the potential severity of the situation. After a brief pause his eyes land on Mac again. "Were you planning on telling me this at one point or was I supposed to read it in the paper with the rest of the world?"

"Duncan..."

"How long?"

Mac sighs, feeling so exhausted all of a sudden he wants nothing more but to sit down. "Twenty hours."

Cohen's eyes widen and he chuckles, but it's a mirthless chuckle. Cynicism. "Did you call the NYPD?"

"I know how to do my job," Mac answers.

Cohen looks down and pinches the bridge of his nose, as if he were trying to make an important decision. "Mac..."

Mac anticipates his move and retaliates before Cohen gets the chance to finish the sentence. "You are not taking this case away from me."

"Well guess what, Mac, that's not your decision to make."

"I told you I have it under control."

"_This_ is under control, Mac?"

"Duncan..."

"Mac," Cohen barks, finally losing his control. "This isn't a negotiation; I'm not trying to sell you a car."

Mac gives him a hard look, but it quickly becomes evident that this is a battle he's not going to win.

Cohen picks up the phone and starts dialing a number. "I'm giving the case to Torres, he's a good CSI."

"I'm a good CSI."

"I wouldn't have promoted you if you weren't," he says and Mac remains silent. A part of him responds to the kind words but it's buried under too many years of bullshit and condescending crap to mean anything to him.

"But this is not official protocol, Mac, you know that. I don't have to come down here and give you a lecture. You're not a child," Cohen adds. "I won't compromise the safety of one of my CSIs because you can't tell the difference between personal and professional. You wanna work the sidelines, hang around until you pass out from lack of sleep? Be my guest. But you are not leading this case, understand?"

"My CSI, my partner."

"Which is why you need to stay away from this investigation," Cohen replies. "Torres is well endowed with the capacity..."

"I'm not questioning his abilities..."

"Mac, Mac," Cohen interrupts him again, this time with a dismissive wave of his hand. "I'm not trying to be the bad guy here. I'm only thinking about Stella's well being. Do you really think you'll be able to go out there and find her and bring her home safely?"

"Yes I can," Mac answers without hesitation.

"Can you?" Cohen says. "Look at you, Mac. Twenty hours and you've already aged 10 years."

Mac shifts uncomfortably in his feet. The rational part of his brain tells him Cohen is right. It's his number one rule at the lab: don't get personally involved, don't let your emotions get in the way. He realizes he's just turned into a hypocrite, but there's an irrational part of him that can't fathom the idea of someone else working this case. It's just not right. He wished people would understand that he needs to find Stella. He. Not Cohen, or Torres, or even his CSIs. He needs to do this himself.

"This isn't fair to Stella. You know that, too," Cohen adds, phone to his ear. "If you really care about her let Torres work the case."

There's no room for a rebuttal, not with Cohen. So Mac merely stands there and listens as Cohen calls Sam Torres down to the lab. Torres must've agreed instantly, who wouldn't under these circumstances, and Cohen merely hangs up the phone and hands Mac the file he's been carrying.

"The Clark case," he explains. "All the details are inside, I'm sure Stella was keeping you informed."

Though Mac can feel the anger burning inside of him, so strongly he feels an overwhelming urge to punch the guy in the face, he gulps it down and grabs the file.

"Stella's a survivor, Mac," Cohen continues, kindly. "I'm sure tomorrow morning she'll walk through that door looking better than us."

Mac doesn't acknowledge it, merely places the file on his desk and turns his back to Cohen until he hears the office door close. When he does, he turns around and Danny is looking in, with an intense look on his face that indicates he probably knows what just happened, that they'll have to stand back and let other people do the work.

He shakes his head and turns to go, clenching his fist because there's nothing he can smash or punch at the moment.

"Son of a bitch," he grunts before he disappears down the lab.

Mac takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.

oooo

He's been staring at the file in front of him since.

He knows the case, because Stella not only likes to keep him informed, she loves to talk about her day. She loves to talk, period. Stella never shuts up.

19 year old Nicholas Clark was found dead in his dorm room at NYU. Stella has been complaining about the case for days now, because she's combed that dorm room at least five times and can't seem to find enough evidence to let her know who might have done this. Too many kids locked in a dorm room, with beer and weed and you have a recipe for disaster.

Normally, the case would be handed down to one of the level ones, because when the evidence isn't cooperative and the investigation isn't moving forward, sometimes you have to move on. Unfortunately, the Clarks are an influential family, with too much money and too much time in their hands and Cohen is too big of a kiss ass to let them know the case might never get solved.

He reached and opened the file, coming face to face with Nicholas Clark's picture. He knows the case, but he's been sitting behind his desk since Cohen left, waiting. Shouldn't take too long but every second that ticks by seems like an eternity. Danny and Aiden are walking around in circles outside, with the little evidence they have sitting in the layout room because they're not allowed to touch it. They have other cases, too many of them, but neither is able to forget about Stella for five minutes, so they pace, walk around, talk about what could've happened, for a few seconds, before they start pacing again.

And Mac just sits. He sits and tries not to think too much and think too much at the same time. He goes over the case again and again in his mind. He thinks of Johnny Buchanan, wonders if he missed something, wonders if Stella was merely the victim of a robbery perpetrated by a couple of teenagers. He wonders if Jorje Maldonado may have something to do with it after all, if there was something he missed there. He wonders why she hasn't called, because even though they have her gun and they have her coat they still don't have her cell phone. Surely she must have it with her. Why hasn't she called?

A few seconds later, Sam Torres rushes into the lab. Danny and Aiden start circling around him immediately, but he tells them something and they quickly walk away. Mac stands up, closes the file in front of him but can't seem to leave it behind. So he grabs it as Sam walks towards his own office, looking serious and somewhat annoyed.

Mac walks out and follows him, and when he walks into Sam's office he finds him hanging his coat on a coat rack by the corner.

"Sam," he calls out, his voice raspier than usual.

Sam turns around and doesn't seem to know how to react or what to say. "Mac, I'm," he says and looks around. "I'm sorry about this."

Mac nods. "We found her gun and coat."

"I know," Sam says. "Got the file."

Mac looks at it, the file. He can't believe Stella is a file now, a case number. He knows it could be worse -- Stella could be a cold case, but it's of little comfort. Stella shouldn't be a file. Stella should be here.

He takes one step forward. "Sam."

"Look, Mac," Sam interrupts. "I don't wanna step on anyone's toes here. You know why I work the night shift? Cause it's dark and quiet and I don't have to deal with assholes, except the ones I fish outta the streets. This case has pissing contest written all over it and trust me, I love Stella as much as the next person but I'm not too excited about the prospect of being persecuted by reporters every time I leave the building."

Mac nods. He understands, really. Sam has always been a quiet guy, hates attention, and has never had a problem with anyone. His parents came over from Puerto Rico to live in one of the shadier neighborhoods in the Bronx. Sam still managed to get himself through college, through the NYPD, was one of the best officers before he was wounded by some punk half his age with twice as many guns. He laughed at his superior when it was suggested he take a desk job, ended up running the CSI night shift instead.

Mac would like to think, sometimes, that if he and Sam worked the same shift they could be close friends, get a couple of drinks after work, go to a few ball games. Unfortunately, the very few times when they do interact are when Mac is arriving at work and Sam is leaving.

Or when they work the same case. Like this one.

And Sam is now analyzing him, trying to read him before he spits out an, "I lost a partner once, I know how it feels."

Mac quiets down his protests. He hasn't lost Stella. He can't tell why people are already acting like she's dead or a lost cause.

"I know Cohen is an asshole, but he has a point, Mac. At one point your brain is gonna shut down and every minute counts."

"Yeah," Mac says.

Sam sort of smiles and approaches Mac, reaches around him and closes the door.

"Uh, look," he starts. "You know Stella better than anyone around here and from what I understand she doesn't have a family."

Mac frowns, wondering where Sam is going with this.

"This shit's gonna hit the fan soon and trust me, Cohen's not gonna have time to go around, seeing who's working on what," Sam continued. "And I'm sure I could use your help."

Mac breathes, for the first time since this entire ordeal began, feels a sense of relief for the first time since Stella disappeared. "I appreciate it."

"But this doesn't make it to Cohen's ears. Whatever you do, whatever lead you find, whatever evidence, I don't care if it's a single hair, you run it through me, _then_ you process it."

Mac nods. He hates receiving orders like that, but it's better than being kept out of the case altogether. And Torres is a good CSI, a good man. He runs the night shift smoothly, he couldn't ask for a better person to work the case.

"You working on something right now?"

Mac waves the file in his hand around. "The Clark kid."

Sam takes the file and looks inside briefly before he closes it again with little interest and throws it on his desk. "I'll have Annabel work on it. She still looks like a teenager, should have no problem blending in."

Mac nods. At this point he doesn't care about Nicholas Clark, he just wants this nightmare to end.

"Process the coat yet?"

Mac shakes his head.

"Alright," Sam says, rolling up his sleeves. "Let's go."

oooo

It's after sundown and Mac starts to believe his entire purpose in life is to wait.

He passes the trace and DNA labs for the nth time since the coat was processed, but the analysts have yet to finish with the results. He knows it takes time, days, months even, but he doesn't have days, and he's sure Stella doesn't have days, either.

Standing there, he feels that strange feeling, the calm before the storm, because they surpassed the 24th hour long ago and he is sure now the NYPD has filed that missing person's case report. It won't be long now before some reporter picks up on it, won't be long before it's all over the newspapers and news broadcasts over the city.

For now, he waits, and it hits him that he's not just lost because she's missing, he's lost because she's missing in his life. Because if Stella was here he would've solved this case long ago. If she was here she'd find a way to keep him going, motivate him, show him a way to bend the rules, infect him with her passion and energy.

A conversation they had not too long ago suddenly comes back and Mac can't help hearing the words over and over in his mind.

"I can honestly say I wouldn't do this job without you."

"Yes you would," she said, playfully. "You just wouldn't be as good."

He laughed it off back then. She laughed it off, too, unaware that in the entire time they've known each other she's never said anything quite so true. It was true back then and it's true now. And it works with the job, his personal life, everything. He's good without her, but with her he's better.

He looks at his watch again and continues his vigilance in front of the DNA lab. Sam is in the layout room, working on the coat still. It's been so long and so arduous, but he can't make himself move.

"Mac," Aiden said as she walks towards him, coat on, her purse hanging off her shoulder.

Mac turns and remembers how late it is, is surprised she even stayed there that long to begin with.

Aiden stands next to him and looks towards the DNA lab, trying to understand what he's seeing, but it's just a bunch of nerdy analysts trying to work as fast as possible. It seems fruitless to her, to stand out here and wait when she knows it might take days, but she's never pretended to understand Mac and what goes on in his mind.

"Get anything?"

Mac shakes his head, eyes still glued to one of the analysts. "Just some unknown substances."

She turns to him again, tired, but trying not to show it. "Listen, I'm gonna go home, okay? But you call me if you find anything."

Mac nods.

She gives him a brief glimpse of pity, but then suddenly catches herself doing it and her look changes to a playful smirk, careful. When she deems everything okay, she pats his back a couple of times, painfully aware of the knots of stress under his flesh.

"And go home, Mac, you smell like shit," she jokes, but doesn't laugh or smile.

Mac takes a deep breath and looks briefly at her before she turns around and walks out. He resumes his watch for five minutes, or ten, an hour, he doesn't know. But it doesn't make the analysts work any faster and when he starts to feel his feet hurting he finally walks away.

The locker rooms are empty, and with a crowbar in hand he approaches Stella's. He takes a moment to remember she'd hate it if he did this, but he has no other choice. With one loud bang, the tiny lock comes off and hits the floor. He opens up her locker and there isn't much inside, the obligatory mirror, make up he's never seen her put on, a hairbrush. Some of her hair is tangled up in the bristles and he bags it. There's a black jacket on a hanger and he carefully places it inside a bag, ignoring the painfully strong "Stella" smell it emanates.

That's it. No address book, no slips of paper that might contain important information, nothing. Stella is the most mysterious and private person he's ever known, and that fact might just hinder this investigation.

He drops the box off on Sam's desk, because it may not contain much but Sam might be able to do something with those hairs.

Sam is playing the waiting game as well, but unlike Mac he's also able to concentrate on other cases, guide his team, talk to them when they come see him, file reports, as he's doing now. It angers Mac, anger or envy, he doesn't know, that Sam can go on about his life like this, that Aiden and Danny can go home, that the world keeps spinning out there. He doesn't know why he can't even think about the prospect of doing anything else other than work on this case.

"Why don't you go home?" Sam suggests despite his better judgment.

"We should go back to Central Park," Mac suggests instead. "Maybe get a couple of dogs, we have the coat."

"Mac," Sam says. "We don't have a crime scene."

"We have an approximation."

"Which you already searched."

"Then let's search again," Mac says.

"They don't have the dogs available right now, don't you think I haven't called?"

Mac feels he's about to explode. He feels it, painfully, feels it as it boils his blood, gives him a headache. There are dark bags under his eyes, wrinkles that had never been there before. His head hurts, his muscles ache, his mind is starting to lag due to the exhaustion. But he's not going home. He can't even fathom the idea. He knows it sounds silly, pathetic, even, but he's not leaving without her.

And Sam is giving him that look again. He hates it. Hates the pity and wishes everyone would just stop looking at him like that. It makes the situation even more unbearable.

"Look, I agreed to let you be a part of the investigation for old time's sake. But you gotta trust me, Mac."

A thousand different voices start complaining in his head but he says nothing. He doesn't know what language he's speaking, but it seems the entire world can't seem to understand his situation.

"Mac, go home," Sam adds. "You're not gonna be able to get any work done like this."

Mac looks at the floor, feels the weight on his shoulders push him down, low, until the vertigo kicks in and he feels he might collapse at any minute.

"I can't," he confesses, hating the words, hating the way they make him feel, weak, helpless.

He feels Sam's hand on his shoulder and for the first time since this all began he feels something. Sam's hand is heavy and soothing at the same time, weird. He's never been one to touch people, or let people touch him.

"Just a couple of hours," Sam coaxes him.

"She's still out there," Mac adds, though he doesn't know if the words materialize or if he's just hearing them in his mind.

"We'll find her," Sam says. "I'll make sure of that."

He nods. There's nothing else to do.

So he drags his heavy feet out, leaves his office door open, he doesn't care, some janitor will take care of it. The night is cold and he stands on the sidewalk, wondering where his car is before he finds it a block away from the lab.

He turns the heat up but it's not enough, knows this will be another cold, unbearable winter. He finds himself driving up and down the city, looking around, hoping she'll jump at him, hoping that wherever she is she's well taken care of, warm, safe.

The gas needle is near empty and suddenly he's faced with a new dilemma: fill it up and keep looking or stop. Other than spending hours upon hours walking around Central Park, shouting her name like some maniac in a Tennessee Williams play, he doesn't seem to be able to come up with options. He can't go back to work because it reminds him of the worst possible outcome of this case. God knows he's seen what human beings are capable of and the thought of Stella falling prey to a sick animal is almost too much to bear. He can't go home because the same thoughts invade him, only it's not Stella but Claire, her body buried under tons of rubble, lifeless, still, ashes to ashes.

So he looks for companionship in his greatest nemesis, the one creature on earth who hates him without any reason, who he hates just as much, maybe the intensity of their feelings for each other will breathe a little life into him.

Brutus meows loudly and hisses at him as soon as he walks through the door. He walks into Stella's kitchen and pours the kitten a bowl of food, and he has no idea if he should pour some water in it, or heat it, or what, but Brutus eats it, so he assumes the cat likes his food dry.

He sits on her couch and watches as the cat gobbles the food down. He remembers Stella talking about wanting a pet, and he remembers suggesting she get a dog. She declined, because dogs are too much work, need too much attention and she doesn't have the time. He remembers suggesting she buy a cat, one of those bushy tailed prissy cats he always sees on commercials, but that's not Stella. Stella ends up at the animal shelter, picking out the most wretched and aggressive creature he has ever seen. Her reasoning was simple enough – "nobody else wanted him."

That's the connection Stella and Brutus have, both unwanted, swept under society's rug to be ignored, rejected.

He doesn't understand that and he doesn't understand Brutus. He doesn't understand cats in general. Dogs he can deal with. Dogs are loyal, dependable, predictable. Cats are the exact opposite - independent, fearless, mysterious. He can't help thinking that's all he and Stella are, that's all it comes down to.

Dog and cat. He's the pathetic, clingy, co-dependent mess; she's the beautiful but untouchable mystery. He needed others to survive – she could be thrown around but always landed on her feet. They were different and incompatible, fought like wild animals, but no matter how much they fought their partnership was solidified by the mere fact that you can't get the dog without getting the cat and vice versa.

Brutus finishes up his meal and begins to lick himself, and Mac lays down on the couch to watch him.

oooo

She hears the sound in the distance, soft but torturing, water dripping somewhere. It briefly brings her back and she frowns at it, because it was incessant enough to drive her crazy. At that moment, she remembers college, remembers learning about the Chinese Water Torture, about how it would drive people crazy. Just a drop of water, dripping over and over. Seemed so simple, yet torturing enough to drive the strongest man insane.

She can't open her eyes, but moans and tries to move and suddenly she hears crying, distant. It's like a dream, a nightmare she can't wake herself from. She wonders briefly if it could be a mouse, some sort of wounded animal, then wonders if the sound is coming from her. She can't tell.

She opens her eyes and it's blurry and dark, cold. She tries to sit up, but her toes are freezing and every movement fills her with excruciating pain. She lays back and looks up, and there's nothing but darkness, water dripping, crying.

She reaches out and finds a hand, little, cold, but shaking. She hangs on to it, hears crying, hears herself saying it'll be okay, they'll be okay, it'll be over soon.

The door opens with a bang.

Mac jumps and gasps. He looks at Stella's ceiling, unrecognizable for a minute until he remembers. Then it hits him hard on the chest and he sits up, lets his head fall between his knees and he breathes hard. He feels the beads of sweat on his temples but ignores them when his cell phone begins to ring. He reaches for it, only to find out he doesn't quite know where it is. After knocking cushions over and moving the couch around he finds it on the floor, and his fingers are jittery as he picks it up.

No hope. It won't be her. He knows it won't be her. But still...

"Taylor."

"Mac, it's Sam."

Mac sighs again, rubbing his temples. He looks at the clock hanging on the wall; 5:36 a.m.

"Sam."

"We just heard back from DNA and trace. The coat," Sam says.

"Yeah?" Mac asks expectantly.

Sam hesitates for a minute before he adds, "you really need to come down here."

To be continued.


	4. Chapter Four

I can't apologize enough for making you guys wait so long. I'm really sorry, but real life has been tough lately. Anyway, I promise I'll get the next chapter out as soon as I can. I also wanted to mention, you guys might want to re-watch Recycling before you read this part, if you don't remember much of it, as the entire idea for this story stemmed from that episode.

* * *

Sub Zero  
by Layla 

He ignores every red light on his way to the lab.

He's way beyond the borders of rationality, of self-control and reason. He doesn't care that he might get into an accident, that his life could end behind the wheel this morning. Right now, he's desperate for answers, desperate to believe he'll talk into the lab and find her there, smiling and telling one of her choice bad jokes.

The streets are half empty (New York is never completely void of people), and when he parks his car on the other side of the street, right in front of the lab, he gets that dreaded sight and his muscles tense up, angers flares momentarily. A news van is parked by the sidewalk as a few crew members stand about, drinking coffee and waiting for someone brave enough to walk near them. Mac hesitates for the first time, wondering how he'll be able to avoid them, but the question quickly transforms into: how will he be able to deal with them?

When they see him there they suddenly spring into action. One of them puts his coffee down and whistles at a tall, blonde woman, who turns around quickly, and when she spots Mac it's like she's hit with a lightning bolt. She grabs a microphone and snaps her fingers at the cameraman to get ready. Mac raises his hand to stop her as she approaches, but that doesn't stop her; that's never stopped a reporter.

"Detective Taylor," she smiles sweetly but somewhat crassly. "Any new developments on the Bonasera kidnapping?"

Kidnapping. That's what they're calling it. The Bonasera kidnapping. He briefly wonders if they have some special music to go along with the report every time there's an update on television.

"No comment," he grumbles at her and keeps walking, but she and her cameraman, and the rest of the crew, follow.

"Do you have anything to say?" she presses. "Anything at all?"

Mac doesn't turn around. "Yeah, no comment."

He hears her sigh behind him, hears her instruct her cameraman to turn the camera off, before he walks into the lab.

Inside, the night shift is getting ready to go home. A few of them look at him like he's a vagabond off the streets, a mad man who clearly doesn't belong in such a civilized place, and he can't blame them for feeling this way – he never went home, never showered, shaved, or changed and he's sure he looks like absolute crap. Aiden and Danny will clock in shortly and he knows one of them – probably Aiden – will say something about it. Neither of them would get the chance to if Stella were here, he thinks. She's always so good at that, so good at finding him, picking him up, putting him back together. Nobody to do that now, nobody to pull him out.

In the layout room, Sam is still hovering over Stella's coat, resting his fists against the table and looking at one of the computers almost hypnotically. When he sees Mac walk into the room he straightens up, and Mac can tell Sam has been working on this non-stop, because his eyes look worn out, like he's been staring into the same spot for hours, and his shoulders hunch over on their own from lack of rest.

He keeps pushing, though. That's Sam.

"Mac," he greets him, mentally preparing himself for the round of questions that are fired at him almost in overlap with his greeting.

"What did you find?" Mac asks, leaving his coat on, ignoring the latex gloves – he doesn't care about cross-contamination right now.

Sam grabs a paper off the table and passes it to Mac. "One of the substances on the coat came back – pollen. We checked the database..."

"Tulips," Mac interrupted with a frown.

"Yeah," Sam says, sighs, it's hard to tell.

"We knew this already," Mac adds impatiently.

"Right," Sam says, almost apologetic, before he continues. "But that's not all. I swabbed the collar and found a few blood drops, though they're not really spatter. My guess is they're transfer, from her skin, possibly, maybe, I don't know. Judging by directionality I'd say we may be looking at a head wound."

He stops, and inspects the features on Mac's face, and the lack of response from his colleague prompts him to move on. "Anyway, compared it to Stella's DNA – it's a match."

Mac grabs the results, so hard the paper crumbles, and sure enough. There it is. Plain as day. The blood belongs to Stella. DNA doesn't lie.

His voice wavers.

"What does this tell us about where she is?" he asks, because he has to press on, he has to keep going. He can't linger. He can't stop and sit down and think about the blood and what it means. He has to put it on the back of his mind and focus.

"Not much, but I was saving the best for last," Sam continues. "I took the buttons out and super glued them. Fingerprints matched Stella's, but on the last button, the one near the collar, we found an unknown."

Mac's mind immediately begins to reel. He feels that jolt of energy that comes after drinking two or three expressos.

"It's a partial... well, it's barely a partial, but I compared it to Johnny boy, no match. Doesn't match Zack's prints, either, or Jorje Maldonado..."

"So this could be..." Mac says, and stops, doesn't know what goes after that. Him? Her? This could be it? Could this be the person who hurt Stella, who made her bleed, who took her away?

"I put it through AFIS. We might get a few hundred matches, but, at this point it's better than nothing."

Mac looks at the computer. It's madly searching through the database, flashing hundreds of fingerprints and pictures per minute. He knows it could take a while, but for the first time he feels they have something tangible, some sort of answer to the big question, a clue, something.

Every once in a while, the machine will stop, compare the two fingerprints on screen and move on. Sometimes it'll find a possible match, and file it away for the end of the search. This goes on for a while as Mac paces, formulates a plan, goes through the information they have for the nth time and tries not to think of the blood, the red droplets, almost invisible, that decorate the collar of Stella's coat.

By the time Danny and Aiden make it there, the machine stops with suspect #257.

And there are so many names on the layout table, so many pictures, so many possibilities, Mac doesn't even know where to start. The four CSIs stand around the table, each with a pile, as Sam gives out the instructions. Concentrate on the suspects who are out of jail, as these possibly had a better chance at reaching Stella. Concentrate on the cases Stella worked, even if those cases resulted in incarceration, because sometimes the craving for revenge is so fierce it doesn't allow itself to be debunked by a barbwire fence and a couple of snipers. Concentrate on the rational possibilities, there's no time for fantasy or speculation.

So Mac concentrates, thinks, and inspects the pictures, the cases, the possibilities as he looks through each case file. Some of the suspects are already diseased, and he puts those in a pile at the end of the table. Some of them are doing time, some of them are free, some on parole, but very few cases were worked by Stella.

Long minutes pass, half an hour, and hour, and they have nothing. In theory, this could fruit a possible suspect, but in reality it's much harder than it sounds, because even though they have a partial it's barely a partial and when it comes down to it, they have 257 suspects, and each and every one of them could've taken Stella. The sheer idea of bringing them all down for questioning sends a current of frustration through them, because that could take days, months, and time is something Stella doesn't have right now.

"This is," Danny sighs as she shakes his head, looking at the growing pile of pictures. The mood suddenly grows somber and he looks at Mac apologetically, because he doesn't want his boss to think he's giving up, and he's not giving up, but there's a certain feeling of hopelessness that's spreading around the lab that nobody wants to acknowledge.

"I don't know what we're looking for here," he says, digging through the case files. "I mean, any of these guys could've..."

He can't say it. None of them can say it. They can think it, possibly picture it in their minds, how it all went down. A head wound, they can see Stella's body hitting the ground, the look on her face, it's haunting, they can see it.

But they can't say it. They can't bring themselves to admit it. Seeing it in their heads makes it a thought, a dream. Saying it out loud would make it real.

But they can't give up. They can't let it go. Stella would never give up. Stella would be the one foregoing sleep and food if any one of them went missing and they owe her that.

Danny sighs and looks down, reaches for his cup of coffee but stops instantly when he looks at Aiden, and she's holding four pictures in her hand, but one of them stands out sharply.

He reaches over and can feel three pairs of eyes on him. He looks at the picture and turns it around, reads the information on the back and sure enough... it's not a case Stella worked, but it's possible that it could be connected, not fact, but an instinct. Mac once told him never to trust instincts but now... this one is strong and so intense it nearly makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and his fingers start shaking.

"What is it?" Aiden asks, looking at him as if he's grown a second head.

"I know this guy. I know him," Danny says, looking at the picture once more. It's not the face he recognizes, but the look on the man's face, the serene but creepy stare, the air, the deviant air that's so strong it can even be felt from a single picture.

And he looks at him now, at the picture of Theodore Gates, and the instinct suddenly becomes evidence. Overwhelmingly, so much so that his heart accelerates and he has to stand up, because the rational part of him goes away and pure adrenaline takes over.

"Who is he?" Mac asks, taking the picture from Danny. He doesn't recognize the man. White, possibly in his late thirties, early forties, vacant look on his face. Mac frowns as he reads the information in the back. Child molester.

"He," Danny begins, and takes a deep breath to try and calm his nerves. His voice still quivers, however, as he tries to find the best way to explain the mess of thoughts in his mind. "I worked a case with Stella last year, bike messenger got stabbed with a Swiss Army Knife. He kept riding the bike until he fell and died on the sidewalk. I, uh, _we_ found the knife, it belonged to this guy, to Gates," he said a little more urgently, looking at the picture and pointing at it simultaneously.

He looks at everyone around the table, and they're all looking at him expectantly, especially Mac, who looks like he might explode at any minute. Danny shakes his head, trying to think, to come up with something to say, but the thoughts are rushing through his mind so quickly he finds himself at a loss.

"I don't, I don't know what to say, Mac," he says.

Mac leads him along urgently, feeling the same rush of adrenaline, feeling a growing tightening in his chest. "This guy, did he threaten her?"

"No, no," Danny says with a shake of his head. "Gates, he's a registered sex offender, a child molester, he did time, I, I think he's on parole. I don't... we talked to him, about the knife, turned out he lost it, someone else found it. Jesus, Mac, I don't know."

"Danny," Mac begins, his eyes wide, his fingers shaking and so close to losing control he has to stop, and breathe, and give the younger CSI a chance to explain.

"Wait a minute, hold on," Aiden jumps in, looking at the picture incredulously. "What would a child molester want with a 34-year-old woman?"

"I don't know," Danny says, his voice filled with wonder, shock. "I mean, he was playing with this little boy when we walked in. Stella... she was disgusted. She threatened to call the cops, but she never did. Swear to God."

"Okay," Sam says, the voice of rationality, the only one around the table who's stable enough to think coherently. "Think. What happened during the interrogation, did they bond, did he..."

"No, no," Danny continues. "I mean, this guy, Mac, he's creepy, but he couldn't snap a twig in two. And Stella's tough, you know? No way could he take her. _No way_."

"Danny," Mac talks now, his tone hard, scolding. "You can't say one thing and then say another. Is he a suspect or not?"

Danny looks at the table. He has to choose his words carefully, because he knows Mac is on the brink of insanity and anything could set him off. He also doesn't want to deal with possibilities that aren't real, doesn't want to lead the investigation in the wrong way.

And yet, there's the instinct again, and it's strong, and it's telling him this is it. It has to be it. It's too real not to be. So he thinks, and looks at the table, and tries to remember what happened that afternoon, remember the tone of Gates's voice, soothing but violent, the look on his face when Stella sat next to him, the interplay between the two. He can't remember some of the details and he wants to hurt himself as a result. He's a CSI and he should be able to remember, he should be able to control his emotions and think, he should've been able to see it back then...

"He wanted me to leave," he says, as he suddenly remembers how Gates had asked him to wait outside. "He wanted to talk to Stella, alone. But I swear, Mac, I didn't know," he says apologetically, as if it was his job to see this coming, almost a year after the encounter with Gates, as if it was his fault, could've stopped it from happening. "Back then, I thought he was just uncomfortable with me. I didn't think... I didn't think it was about Stella."

"Maybe it wasn't," Sam says, taking the picture from Mac and studying the file. "Like Aiden said, what would a man who likes little boys want with a 34-year-old woman?"

"Let's go ask him," Mac says, already on his way out the door.

oooo

Theodore Gates lives in a shackled old building on the frontier between Brooklyn and Queens. The hallway outside his apartment smells like moisture and mold, and Mac, Sam, and Flack stand about, looking around expectantly. Flack knocks on the door, announces himself, 'NYPD,' but there's no answer.

So he knocks again, louder, banging his fist against the door furiously, but that only succeeds in scaring a baby into a fist of cries one of the nearby apartments. As Sam and Flack wait, Mac wanders off, because maybe he'll find a cooperative neighbor or an eyewitness, but the doors he knocks on, even the ones with residents inside, are never opened.

A woman carrying a bag of groceries walks up the stairs and he walks towards her, shows her a picture of Stella, have you seen this woman? Have you heard anything? Anything suspicious? Anything at all? But the woman merely clutches her grocery bag, shakes her head and hurriedly walks away from him.

When he returns to his crew, Flack is clutching a gun in his hands, and without waiting for a command he kicks on Gates's door, once, twice, before it busts open with a loud bang. The baby's wailing increases. Mac looks at Sam, but neither man says anything, and as they walk into the apartment Mac is momentarily overwhelmed by the amount of dust particles floating around.

There is a suspicious lack of furniture inside, an old couch facing a 10 inch TV, a brown carpet that's seen way too many decades go by. The windows are closed, the smell of dust and mold overwhelming, and if they didn't know any better, they would've assumed no one lived there at all – no one could, especially someone as obsessive as Gates. Alarm bells go off, but no one says anything.

Mac leaves Sam and Flack and wanders through. In the kitchen, an old refrigerator and a round table, very few pots and pans, a dripping faucet. He can hear the rats running through floors, through the walls, and it takes a great amount of strength to talk himself into continuing the search. In this day and age it's hard to believe human beings live like this, but it's a reality nobody wants to talk about in New York.

He passes the bathroom – old, rusty features, a moldy bathtub – right into the bedroom, where a twin bed is pressed up against the wall. A few shirts and a few pants decorate the floor, but the lack of clothing or personal items is suspicious. Mac looks around, dusty smell mixes with a small amount of musk and he puts his hand to his nose, not because of the smell but the images of Gates, preying on small boys, excusing his behavior off as a sickness – it's nauseating.

Mac looks around, and it's almost impossible to miss. In a corner, bright yellow, a sharp contrast to everything that decorates the small room. He walks over and picks it up – a baseball cap, too small to be Stella's, too small to be Gates's, for that matter, with the Mets logo sewed in the front. Mac looks at it, realizing instantly what this means.

When Sam walks into the room and spots Mac, he stops. The two men share a look, but say nothing.

oooo

"This can't be a coincidence," Danny says as he paces around the room, his hands on his hips, his energy through the roof.

Mac doesn't say anything, but thinks it's ironic, that a great amount of drama could be caused by a small child's baseball cap.

"Mac, this is it," Danny continues. "The son of a bitch."

Still Mac says nothing. It would be easy to make assumptions and leap to conclusions under such strenuous circumstances, but the truth is, the evidence doesn't seem to support Danny's theory, even if it turns out to be true, all they have is evidence that doesn't support Stella was in Gate's apartment.

But a small boy was.

The two men stand outside the DNA lab waiting. A tech is inside, swabbing the baseball cap and comparing it to a sample. Mac is distantly aware of the silence around the lab, the people pretending to work on their cases but really, only keeping an eye out to see what this all means. He can't remember a time when the lab has been so quiet, and maybe it's just him, maybe it's this entire situation, but for some reason he can't hear people around him, so it's easier to assume no one is saying anything out loud.

Instead, all he hears, all he can hear since this entire ordeal began, is snippets of conversations he's had with Stella over the past 10 years. He finds it hard to hear anything else, though he tries because he knows the fate of his case depends on it, but it's strong and hard to fight. Sometimes he'll turn around and see Aiden there, her mouth moving, trying to show him something, but all he can hear is Stella's voice, most likely his voice of reason, talking about meaningless things, talking about deep things and he wishes more than anything that she could be here right now to guide him through this, because he's a man of war, a man of courage but he knows now, just like he knew the day before, that he can't possibly do this alone.

He can't do it as a man, and he's starting to think he can't do it as an investigator. Too much time has passed and he finds this inexcusable for Mac Taylor, head of the lab, a man of war, trained by the Marines, served with the NYPD, awarded the highest honors, and he can't possibly figure out this case on his own. It doesn't make sense, nothing makes sense and he fears he's starting to lose his mind.

_You're thinking with your English brain, Mac. Gnōthi seauton.Use your Greek brain._

The tech finally finishes the comparison, and Mac and Danny rush into the room instantly. The tech looks up, looks uncertain about being the one to deliver the news but he doesn't have to say it out loud, a simple nod tells Mac his fears have turned to reality. Next to him, Danny curses furiously and walks out of the lab, slamming the door behind him with a bang so loud, the entire lab goes quiet.

Mac takes the sheet of paper from the tech and looks at the results thoughtfully. DNA from the baseball cap perfectly matches the DNA sample provided by 8-year-old Elias Gomez's parents.

Looks like Stella just solved her case.

oooo

Over the years, Mac has come to think of the press as an omnipotent, omnipresent entity. You can try to hide something from the press, but the press is always there, even when you can't see them, they're always waiting, and they're always one step ahead of you.

In the distance, he can hear an update on the news. He tries not to look up but he can't control himself, and the female reporter has a picture of Stella on screen, and all he can think about is the fact that Stella hates that picture as the reporter drones on.

"Sources say the Bonasera kidnapping might be related to the disappearance early this week of 8-year-old Elias Gomez, who went missing from his home in Brooklyn while he was on his way back home from school. An Amber alert was put out for Gomez but investigators still don't have a lead for either case. If you have any information, please contact the NYPD immediately. More information at when it becomes available."

He's got the phone pressed to his ear and it's been ringing for what seems like ages, but he won't, or can't, put it down. When the machine picks up he hangs up and dials again, and as Aiden and Danny watch the news intently, Mac waits, wishing Sam hadn't gone home but he realizes Sam has to sleep some time, and he's done enough for this case, more than Mac could've hoped for.

A woman finally picks up, and much to his dismay Mac is put on hold, and less than a minute later, another woman picks up the phone, her voice tired and monotonous.

"This is Detective Mac Taylor from the crime lab, I'm calling about one of your parolees Theodore Gates."

The woman sighs. "Gates, Gates, hold on." She seems to be going through some paperwork and Mac tries hard not to snap at her right there. "Ah, yes."

"We can't seem to find him."

It's a strong allegation, because in truth Gates hasn't been a suspect too long, but Mac needs all the information he can get.

"It's two in the afternoon, Detective Taylor. He's probably at work."

Mac makes a note of Gates's place of employment and passes it to Danny, who pockets it quickly and hurries out of the lab.

"Have you had any problems with Gates since his release from prison?"

"Not at all," the woman says convincingly. "He's been following the conditions of his parole to the letter, he's maintained a job, he's doing his meetings, and he's readily available when I need him. To be honest, I wish they were all like him."

Mac tries very hard not to tell her everything right there, because she should know what Gates has been up to, but he doesn't need to leak out more information than the press has already gotten. So he hangs up the phone and finds Aiden looking down at him, her arms crossed, that look on her face – pity. He's come to realize he hates the word as much as he hates the look.

"What?" he barks at her, and this time she doesn't apologize. She doesn't even move. Aiden is tough like that.

"Mac, if you keep pushing yourself like this, you're gonna get sick."

He looks at her, feels threatened for a second, but the tone in her voice makes her sound more concerned than judgmental, and for a brief second she reminds him of his mother. "I'm fine," he mutters as he looks around his desk, trying to keep track of these two cases and the load of paperwork they've produced. Sitting down makes him feel guilty, but he reminds himself he needs to stay on top of things, because working two cases that might be connected is not easy.

"Why don't you go home and take a shower, get some sleep, just an hour or two? Danny and I can handle this," she adds.

He doesn't say anything, but looks at her and they both know right there that's not an option. They also know what annoying cliché comes next, 'Stella wouldn't wanna see you like this,' but she spares him the nicety and rather sits down, looking at the pile of paperwork, her determination renowned.

"Okay," she breathes. "Say Stella found something on Gates, say she figured it all out before we did."

"Stella wouldn't pursue a suspect without backup," Mac says, feeling suddenly fiercely protective of Stella's reputation because he doesn't want this all to come down to this, to come down to a mistake on Stella's part.

Aiden hesitates, but continues. "Mac, I love Stella. She's the sister I never had, but, we both know she can be a little impulsive sometimes."

Mac says nothing. He knows this is true, he's seen Stella do some impulsive things in the 10 years they've known each other. She's the most passionate person he's never known, and sometimes has some difficulty controlling herself, but at the same time he doesn't want to admit this is a possibility. Stella is smarter than this. She knows better. He's told her, over and over, if you're in trouble just call me, call the cops, call 911. Don't ever pursue a suspect without backup. Never.

But the amount of rage a man like Gates could arise in Stella could've caused her to think incoherently for a second. That's all you need sometimes to die. Just a second. The pull of a trigger, even less than a second. The amount of time it takes for a bullet to leave the gun and spill red blood on the ground. A second. He doesn't want to admit it, but it's a possibility. He can hear her voice now; maybe she couldn't hear his that night.

Aiden takes a deep breath and reaches her hand out to him. "House keys."

He frowns at her and she shakes her head. "Give me your house keys, I'm getting you a change of clothes."

"I don't need—"

"Yeah, you do, Mac. You're stinking up the whole place," she says humorously and they both allow themselves to smile for just a second. He reaches for his keys reluctantly and hands them out to her. "And you need to shave, too. Stubbles don't look good on a Marine. I'll swing by that Chinese place you like on my way back. Have you eaten anything?"

He's surprised to find he can't even remember the last time he ate something, and the mere mention of Chinese makes his stomach roar loudly.

"Jesus Christ, Mac, no wonder you look like hell. You know, if you don't eat, your brain won't function as well," Aiden says as she starts to walk out, sounding more and more like his mother. "I'll be right back."

She's gone and Mac leans back on his chair, feeling just a tad better knowing this hasn't caused the lab to break apart. He's always seen this place as his home, and the people in it a family – Danny and Aiden, they feel like his kids and it always gives him a renown sense of purpose whenever one of them is in trouble and they come to him first, rather than going to their real parents. He feels happy, even complete, whenever he and Stella, and Danny and Aiden, get to go somewhere, and he watches in amusement as Stella tries to get Danny and Aiden to stop arguing about stupid things (Danny likes the Yankees, Aiden likes the Mets and when they start bickering about it there's no stopping them).

There's nothing left for him back home. His wife is gone, his family is far away, and sometimes his own apartment feels like a stranger's. This is where he feels alive and without Stella here he finds that life is stripping away. The thought of this being a permanent change makes his chest tighten and his legs go weak, and suddenly he's back to that day when the towers came down, the desperation, the fear, the pain – it's too much and he can't take it. He can't do it again. It nearly killed him the first time and he knows, knows as he knows his own name, that this time it'll kill him for good.

The file looks at him from his desk and he knows the answers are there, hidden in the stack of paperwork, but he can't see it. He feels like he's miles away and his body is slowly giving out. His head hurts from the abundance of exhaustion and the lack of sleep or food and Aiden's words make sense, but at the same time he can't stop, he can't sleep, not until she's back.

He leans over his desk and his hands cradle his head and he's overwhelmed by the realization that he _needs_ her, needs her to sleep, needs her to eat, needs her to breathe and just be. He needs her and he's never realized this until now, now that it might be too late and now when he's on the brink of losing himself again, only this time she won't be there to catch him, pick him up and put him back together like she did before. Now he'll simply continue to fall and fall, his body working on sheer repetitiveness, his mind gone somewhere far and dark and the persistent whispering of her voice continues to haunt him.

_Kai gar hois allo mēden, autē parestē, Mac. You know you're stronger than this. _

oooo

"He's one of my best employees," Gates's boss says as he walks around his supermarket, supervising the rest of the workers there, Danny and Flack in tow. "He's always here on time, he doesn't complain, hell, sometimes I have to force him to take a break. He's exemplary."

"Where is he now?" Flack asks.

"He called in sick, said he won't be in here for a couple of days. He's never missed a day of work, so what the hell." The three men stop in the cereal aisle and the manager turns to them, "why, is there something wrong?"

Flack and Danny ignore him. "What exactly is his job here?"

"He gets to stock the aisles some days, sometimes he bags groceries," the manager says. "It's not the first time we've taken in an ex-con, it's part of the program, you know?"

"Ever seen him talking to the costumers?" Danny asks.

The manager shrugs his shoulders. "I suppose, if people can't find what they're looking for, they ask us all the time."

"What about kids?" Flack adds. "Ever seen him playing with the kids, talking to them?"

"No," the manager says slowly, looking suspicious. "I don't know, I don't really have the time to stand around, watching my employees work."

Flack nods and reaches inside his pocket for a card. "If you hear from him, give us a call ASAP."

The manager takes the NYPD card and looks at is strangely. "Hey, wait a minute, hold on. Is there something I should know?"

"Yeah," Danny says before he starts to walk away. "Your fly's open."

oooo

Mac comes out of the locker room with a new change of clothes, his stubble gone, his hair combed and his stomach full, and though he's feeling a tad better, that feeling goes away when he makes it to be lobby and finds Aiden talking to a man and a woman, and the woman is on the verge of tears and the man looks agitated.

He approaches them slowly and Aiden turns around, looking relieved to see him there before she introduces them. "Mac, this is Lucas and Ana Maria Gomez, Elias's parents."

Mac nods understandingly, shaking Lucas's hands but he doesn't have time to express his sentiments before Lucas begins to fire questions at him.

"We've been watching the news," Lucas says, and the man looks as desperate as Mac feels. "They're saying the same person who took Elias also took Miss Bonasera."

Mac doesn't say anything, but leads them away from his office and into the lab, where there are less spectators. He doesn't know how to word this, he certainly doesn't want to give them false hope or the wrong information, because at this point they don't have much to go on and he knows what it's like to be where they are. So he chooses his words carefully.

"We might have a suspect," he says, "but at this point we don't have much to go on."

"Well, who is he?" Ana Maria asks, and Mac recognizes in her face the results of going on no sleep.

He also knows Elias's parents might be able to help, if they can recognize Gates, but he guides them into the DNA lab first, and when he shows them Elias's baseball cap Ana Maria bursts into sobs again. The two men console her as Lucas tells Mac about the baseball cap, about the only time he's been able to take Elias to a baseball game, last May. The Mets beat the Yankees and the little boy was beside himself on their way home, and a year later Elias still wears the cap as often as he's allowed and talks about the great game as if it would've taken place yesterday.

"Where did you find it?" Lucas asks, struggling with the words.

Mac nods. "This suspect I told you about, it was in his apartment."

"Who is he?" Ana Maria asks again.

Mac hesitates. He knows they have every right to know what might've happened to their son, he understands their desperation, but the admission is so grave he fears the consequences.

"Please, Mr. Taylor," Lucas says desperately, his eyes beginning to turn red. "Miss Bonasera said that whatever news she finds, we'd be the first ones to know. But now she's missing and no one is telling us anything."

Mac guides them to a corner and they all sit down, and as he ponders the words in his mind he realizes Stella was always much better at this than he was. "Theodore Gates, maybe you recognize the name?" The Gomezs shake their heads and Mac continues after taking a deep breath. "Gates is a convicted sex offender."

They both understand the term instantly, but something tugs and Ana Maria can't help asking, "what?"

"You mean," Lucas adds, but he can't finish the sentence without being overwhelmed by the nausea.

Mac nods and adds, "he's still a suspect, and we don't have much to go on."

"But you found his baseball cap in this man's apartment," Ana Maria says.

Mac nods again, feeling helpless. Ana Maria begins to sob again and stands up, walks out of the room and when Mac turns to Lucas he finds the man staring ahead thoughtfully.

"We're still," Mac says, trying to gentle the punch, but he knows that won't fix anything, just like the promises of war didn't make things better when his wife was taken. So he stops there.

After a moment of silence, Lucas takes a deep breath, looking both lost and furious at the same time. "I came to this country because I wanted to give my children a better life."

Mac nods understandingly. "You can't blame yourself for this."

But Lucas is in that place already. It's a very dark place and too hard to get out of there, he's been there, he was there years ago and he's in the brink of that place right now.

"Is my son alive?"

The words are weak and Lucas is now in tears and Mac wishes more than anything that he could say yes, yes and we'll find him and bring him back safely, but he knows he would be fooling them both. So he makes a promise, to Lucas, to Elias and Stella that he won't rest until they find Gates and get some answers, and it isn't much, doesn't hold much water, the promise of a broken man, but right now it's all they have to go on.

oooo

There is a Greek lullaby she sings to herself all the time, at home, when there's no one around, and each time she wonders if somewhere out there, her real parents ever had the chance to sing it to her, to sing it to another child.

The cold is fading and is slowly being replaced by darkness, by numbness. Her extremities no longer burn, but are merely gone. The words swim around in her mind, but she finds they soon jumble together and she can no longer remember how the lullaby goes.

Still, she tries to mumble it out loud, hoping they return to her and the tune grows quieter and quieter each time, Greek words mingle with English words and she can no longer feel her hands, her feet. There's incoherent thoughts slowly streaming in and out, but for the most part there's nothing except the music, in broken Greek, fading into her slowly.

The crying won't stop. It goes high, and sometimes it grows low, but it's always there. She reaches out, seeking, but this time finds nothing. She closes her eyes against her will, and the tune soon disappears into the darkness.

oooo

Mac holds his pen against the stack of papers on his desk but nothing comes out. Somewhere in his office, or out in the lab, he can't tell, reporters on CNN continue to talk about Stella's case, but he can no longer tell what is fact and what is mere fantasy. It's getting dark out, the temperatures are dropping and he doesn't want to face the fact that another night might go by without Stella around. It's quiet now, the type of quiet that disrupts the storm and he fears something coming.

He forces himself to scribble some notes on the case down when, from the corner of his eye, he sees Danny juggle up to his office. Mac is on his feet before the young CSI opens the door.

"Mac, let's go," Danny says, out of breath. "Gates just came home."

And Mac ignores the sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach and grabs his jacket to quickly jog out of his office.

TBC

* * *

Greek translations:  
Gnōthi seauton – know yourself.  
Kai gar hois allo mēden, autē parestē – when all is gone, there is still hope. 


	5. Chapter Five

Sub Zero  
by Layla

Gates sits in the interrogation room calmly, looking around the bare walls and dim lighting with the curiosity of a small child in a brand new world.

Next to him, his lawyer reads from a file, frowning at the pages as she turns them quickly.

Behind the glass, Danny, Flack and Mac watch quietly.

They need to figure out a way to proceed with this, because just looking at Gates it's clear they'll have to rely on psychology rather than intimidation if they want the information they need. Mac is tired, his head pounds loudly and he thinks he might possibly be facing the biggest obstacle this case has offered so far. He tells himself, over and over again, that he has to remain calm, he has to remain in control, he has to remain one step ahead of Gates if he wants to win the race, but it's hard to think of control and calmness when he's so close to the verge chaos and thoughts of Stella still out there plague his mind.

He can feel Danny's energy next to him, and he can tell the young CSI is itching to run into the room and beat Gates to a pulp. He considers briefly the idea of leaving Danny behind and proceeding with Flack, but in a way he needs some of that frustration Danny is feeling to keep him grounded.

"Let's go," Flack says next to them, and Mac takes a look at Gates one more time before they walk into the room.

Gates' lawyer is a serious, well put together African American woman, and her expression doesn't give much away. She stands up when they walk into the room and introduces herself as Regina Walker, and shakes their hands politely before she sits down again. Mac can tell she has trained Gates well, because the man simply remains in his seat, barely looking at them and seemingly off in another world.

"I've been catching up on some light reading," Walker says as she sits back, and Mac can tell by her body language that she's a shark. Something tells him this might not go over well. "Two counts of kidnapping... very intrepid accusation."

"Sadly it's not based on fiction," Mac tells her, and his voice is raspier than usual. "We have proof that your client may have been involved in the kidnapping of Elias Gomez."

"The child from the news," Walker nods and considers this for a second. "What kind of proof?"

Mac looks at Gates, and he repeats the mantra in his head over and over again – relax, stay focused, stay grounded, one step ahead. Gates doesn't seem interested in the conversation, merely focuses on his hands as if they were the most fascinating thing in the world to him. Mac feels the base of his neck burning with anger, frustration, yearning, and desolation. He knows what he has to do to beat Gates. He knows he'll have to play a psychological game of cat and mouse, and for the life of him, he cannot seem to find the energy in him to start, knows that right now Gates is in the lead, Gates is ahead. His head pounds one more and he feels the energy draining out of his body in slow motion, his sanity flowing out with it.

_You own this, Mac. This is your thing. Just relax... _

"We found this, in your apartment," Danny continues for him, producing Elias's yellow cap inside a plastic bag.

The lawyer inspects it closely and sits back, nonplussed. "So what? A lot of kids own baseball caps like that. My nephew has it in three different colors."

"That's funny. Do they all have Elias Gomez's DNA on the rim?" Danny says cockily.

The lawyer looks at him over her glasses. She takes a deep breath quickly and leans forward, and Mac can see it coming, the killer move, and yet he can't find the energy to stop it. "How did you get this?"

"I just said," Danny says, completely oblivious, "it was in _his_ apartment."

"How did you get in my client's apartment?" Walker says, a self-satisfied smug already forming on her lips. Danny gets it then, and says nothing, and Mac can barely stand the thought of watching.

"You searched my client's apartment without a warrant," Walker finally says, sitting back. "Do you really think this is gonna hold up in court?"

"Your client raped and possibly killed an 8-year-old boy," Mac finally says, his voice barely registering above a whisper.

Walker finally looks at Mac, and though she looks somewhat sympathetic, Mac has known enough lawyers in his lifetime to know it's an act. "Look, I'm sorry about this little boy, I really am. And I'm sorry about your friend. But my client did his time in prison, he's been going to meetings, he's rehabilitated. And then you break into his apartment and retrieve a baseball cap that, for all we know, he found on the sidewalk. I'm sorry, detective, but I'm not seeing the proof here."

"Your client kidnapped and murdered an eight year old boy," Flack says, standing next to the table and though he's the most put together of the three, the frustration is still evident in his tone.

"You can't prove that, not with this," the lawyer says and starts putting her things together. "You have a baseball cap that you obtained illegally. You _violated_ my client's rights. It's not admissible in court. So unless you have something else, we're out of here."

Mac ignores her, and looks at Gates. The man is still enthralled by his hands, but after a moment, feeling Mac's eyes on him, he looks up, and Mac fights every urge he has, every molecule in his body screaming at him to get violent, to grab him and smash his face against the wall and never stop until he tells him where Stella is, until he assures him that she's safe.

His eyes are vacant, empty, and Mac knows at that moment – this is it. This is the answer they've been looking for all these days, right in front of him. He's always rejected the idea of instincts and feelings when it comes to his work, but looking into Gates's eyes, and Gates looking into his, he can _feel_ it, and he can _see_ her, and though it's hard to verbalize or even think about, he knows Gates knows, too.

Walker stands up, and Gates tears his eyes away from Mac's to follow her. As they're leaving he stops, turns around and looks at the floor as he says calmly, childishly, "I'm sorry about your friend."

Sitting next to Mac, he can feel Danny's hands balling into fists, and it takes an extraordinary amount of strength for Mac not to lose control as well.

"Come on," Walker says and guides Gates out, and with the bang of the door echoing in the small room he can see the final piece landing on the board

Checkmate, and he's out.

oooo

He sits in his office hours later, his fingers playing with the corner of a piece of paper.

He looks out, though he focuses on nothing, on nobody. The lab is quiet, but this time for different reasons. He's been in his office, alone, uninterrupted for hours, and he knows most likely he'll remain that way for the rest of the day. Outside, his employees walk around seemingly aimlessly (or maybe he's projecting) and whereas they weren't able to look him in the eyes before because of Stella, now they avoid him to prevent him, and themselves, from thinking about what happened with Gates.

He feels his chest heavy, and though he tries, as hard as he can, to put it all behind him he's unable to. He feels the loss, like millions of grains of sand slipping through his fingers until none remain. He had it, had it all, was this close to putting all the pieces of the puzzle together, and in a moment of irrationality all the pieces were blown away and he lost everything.

Danny and Aiden have moved on to other cases, because despite it all, the world has continued to spin, minutes are still ticking by, and people are still dying in the streets of New York. The amount of paperwork on his desk increases, though is ignored, and criminals are still roaming the streets. They have jobs to focus on, cases to close, and though he can't fathom the idea of removing Stella's file from the top of his opened cases pile, he can't very well expect everyone else to exhaust the lab's resources on this.

Though he wants to, wishes he could give that order, but it's not in his hands now. It was, just hours ago he had it, and quickly it slipped away, and now his hands are empty, his fingers playing with the corner of a piece of paper.

The elevator suddenly dings. A door opens, and his eyebrows flicker slightly at the sight of Duncan Cohen.

The older man makes his way across the lab, everybody's eyes following, none daring to say a thing. Instinctively, Mac stands up, and his hands find their way into his pockets as he waits, and the beat of his heart increases. The pieces are strewn all over the floor. He's too tired to pick them up and knows they most likely wouldn't fit together.

Cohen starts speaking before he even closes the door behind them. "The _hell_ were you thinking, Mac?"

He doesn't answer. There's no point anymore. He can't ration it, can't explain the man he's become in just a few days, a wild creature on no sleep and too many cups of coffee and tormented by racing thoughts.

Cohen gets this, and instead of gracing him with a lecture, he places his hands on his hips and paces around the office a few times as the people outside try not to stare.

Finally Cohen stops, and while looking down he takes a deep breath and lets it out. "I'm gonna need your gun and badge."

In a way, in some strange way, he saw it coming, but the words still sting him deep and he needs to look down, take a deep breath and try to remain collected. "Look—"

"Mac, it's not a negotiation," Cohen says, his hands on his hips and his face hard. "I _told_ you to stay away from it. I told you to let Sam deal with it, but you didn't listen. And now I have a little boy missing, possibly dead, and the man responsible for it is going to walk away scot free. How do you expect me to explain that to the family?"

He says nothing, because he knows Cohen is right. He messed up. He tried to remain objective but feelings got in the way, and an innocent child paid the prize for it. It's this fault. This. All of it. And if she dies... it's on him. On him. And that thought consumes him more than anything else.

"Go home, Mac. Take some time off. Go on a trip, visit your family... do whatever it is you need to do to put yourself together, otherwise I'm not sure I can have you working on this lab anymore."

The words barely hit him, barely register. He's past the point of dealing with the rules and regulations and following protocol. It's gotten him nowhere yet. So without fighting it, without saying a word, he reaches for his belt and throws his badge on the table, and his gun soon follows. He grabs his jacket and coat, and as he walks out he glances at the file on top of the desk.

Bonasera, Stella.

Briefly he considers grabbing it and taking it with him but it's no use. There isn't a fact, a sentence, a single word in that file that isn't imprinted in his memory already. So passing Cohen quietly he opens the door and makes his way out, and he can feel Aiden's eyes and her questioning look on him, but they have no effect. This, this place, this lab, his second home, is suddenly unknown. Unimportant. It's only a part of the Mac Taylor he can't be right now, the Mac Taylor who could remain objective, the Mac Taylor who would've found her by now, and brought her home safe. It's in him, buried deep under too much weight to retrieve.

He presses the elevator button and waits, and after a moment he hears the dingle, and the door opens. As he steps in he hears another ding, and suddenly he's back under that giant tent, and smells the elephants and hears the crowd cheering and he thinks – when she comes back, when he gets her back, he's going to give the circus a second chance. The resolution is the only thing that prevents him from crushing all the bones of his hand into the elevator wall.

oooo

Her breathing is hitched, and comes to her only in slow spurts.

The cold is gone, and replaced by an underwhelming numbness that tells her the end is near. Her mind is hazy, and she teeters on the edge of consciousness and not, but for the few seconds, mere seconds, that she can think, she knows she can't fight it anymore, can't win. It has consumed her slowly like a virus, taking everything away, inch by inch, limb by limb, until what remains now is a dulling, losing fight, a faint stubbornness that is slowly quelling, and what waits for her is nothing.

It goes and comes back, until she can't tell what's consciousness and what's not, what's real, or if she's already died and this is hell, or the purgatory, or something else. But when she thinks she has the answer it disappears, buried in black, and it all goes.

But the weeping. It's the only thing keeping her on the now, and often the one thing that makes her wish it would all end. Her eyelids flicker, less than a second of instinctive motion, but the blur of darkness is impossible to surpass, and so they close again. Her mind wills her hand to move, but its numbness prevents her from knowing if it does. Even if she did she can't tell where is up, or where is down, or if she's on the floor or somewhere else. If there's contact she can't feel it, but judging by the constant weeping she wonders if her presence there is any help at all.

And then suddenly, without a warning, a flash of light bursts into the room, the loud bang of a door, and her mouth opens and she tries to speak, but there's no voice there, at least none than she can hear. But there's noise, a shuffle, a raging shout, the light flickers, and as quickly as it came it's gone. Her eyelids give out; she takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly and feels herself floating away.

In her subconscious, the motherly tone of a Greek lullaby she was then too young to know and now too old to remember. Her time slows, the last few grains of sand falling agonizingly slow and yet not, and in her last few seconds she finds herself in the hallways of the lab, in the comforts of her bed, in her old desk at the academy, the smell of old books and newly sharpened pencils, hiding under the table of the dining room at the orphanage, dreaming of a different life, and back to infancy, back to innocence, back to a last long embrace and a tearful kiss, back into her mother's womb and the circle comes together and she's a group of cells drained of life once more.

In that last second she sees the bags under his eyes.

oooo

Stella's couch is uncomfortable, and it causes a dulling ache in his hips, but he can't bring himself to touch her bed. He lies there looking at the ceiling, with Brutus casually sleeping by his legs.

He's paralyzed.

His resources are out, the questions lead to more questions, so do the scarce answers, and everywhere he turns there seems to be a brick wall. He's gone through tanks and tanks of gas driving around the city, around the park, asking complete strangers if they've seen the woman on the picture. He leaves the television and the radio on, hoping some intrepid reporter has been able to get their hands on any new piece of information, but like the city, the media seems to have forgotten about the missing detective. After all, other people go missing, other people are dying, and for everyone else, time continues to move forward.

On his way home, his new post, he passed thousands of homes. In them, women were preparing meals, children were washing their hands, men were casually glancing the paper. In them, people were living – a young man calling his parents, a woman checking her reflection in the mirror and stressing about wrinkles, an old man dying, a new child being born right next door. People living and therefore dying. People moving. Couples arguing and couples making love. Lights turning on and going out. People living.

But staring at the ceiling, he can't get rid of the stench of snowing debris.

And like the same roar and impact of the falling twins, everything once again changes in an instant.

The call comes in at 11:53 pm. If it hadn't been for Stella's scanner he would've missed it completely. He's out the door before he gets the chance to put his coat on, and the streets are cold, with a high wind chill but he doesn't feel it. He drives faster than usual, beating some of the officers to Bowling Green Park.

He starts to make his way to the front, but a young officer stops him.

"Sorry, sir. No civilians."

Mac starts reaching for his badge only to realize quickly Cohen has it, and he starts to come up with an explanation, but lucky for him Flack sees him and quickly lets him through. The young detective starts talking to him about the conditions, about the jogger who found the body, about the apparent cause of death but Mac doesn't hear it. He reaches the end of the line, and as the coroner makes her way down he takes a deep breath.

His eyebrows furrow, and his hands ball into fists. In the cold ditch lies the body of Elias Gomez, frozen and lifeless.

The minutes tickle by. He stands there and watches and around him everybody moves. In a building a mere three blocks away a baby's crying, and in the apartment next door a father talks to his son about sex for the first time. In the floor below a couple prays for the safe return of their son, and further away, in the darkness, the melody of an old Greek lullaby faintly fades.

Mac stands there watching. He can't hear her voice anymore.

TBC


End file.
